


I'll explain everything to the geese

by napricot



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Birds, Captain America Sam Wilson, Case Fic, Comic Book Science, First Time, M/M, Miscommunication, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Partners to Lovers, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Sam Wilson Can Talk to Birds, Sam Wilson-centric, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:35:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27000562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/napricot/pseuds/napricot
Summary: Bucky is so competent that it hurts my feelingsis not a rational complaint to have about a person, and yet, after a year of being Captain America and partnering up with Bucky for the new and improved, post-Blip Avengers, that’s kinda how Sam’s feeling.It’s not great. It maybe leads to Sam making some rash, ill-advised decisions like claiming he has a previously undisclosed superpower, and then getting caught in a web of lies when he ends up actually developing that surprisingly inconvenient superpower. Talking to birds had seemed like a harmless superpower, but it turns out that birds have a lot of opinions, and they don’t hesitate to tell Sam about them, especially when it comes to his supposedly subpar courting skills. Which is ridiculous, because Sam isn’t courting Bucky. Right?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Comments: 348
Kudos: 735





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’m participating in [Marvel Trumps Hate 2020](https://www.marveltrumpshate.com/about/)! If you’d like to support some incredible organizations like The Bail Project, World Central Kitchen, and the National Immigration Law Center, among others, and get a Captain America fic from me, keep an eye out for [my auctions](https://mthofferings.tumblr.com/post/631671859922010112/napricot)!
> 
> Title from The National’s “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks”, kind of. The actual lyric is “I’ll explain everything to the geeks,” but I do what I want. Also hoekitchen told me I should definitely use the incorrect version of this lyric for my title.

“So, are we agreed, this is the roster of active Avengers who’ll be on call on Earth?” asks Rhodey, in hour two and minute forty-seven of the first post-post-apocalypse, post reworked Accords meeting of the Avengers.

“I’m still not certain I’m comfortable being classified as an Avenger,” says Dr. Strange with a pissy little frown, and Sam nearly groans and faceplants onto the conference room table.

If they’re about to have another round of “discussion” about the validity of the Avengers as a team name and/or superhero classification, Sam is going to scream.

“It’s just for the paperwork, Dr. Strange,” says Rhodey with a strained smile. “We know your main responsibility is to the, uh, Sanctum Sanctorum.”

“I still vote for Avenger Emeritus as a title over Consulting Avenger,” says Stark. “Sounds fancier.”

“Overruled,” the entire rest of the Avengers say in near unison, and Stark pouts.

“Rude! And after I saved the universe from Thanos!”

“We _all_ helped save the universe,” says Steve, only a little more long-suffering than fond. Sam’s honestly still kind of weirded out by how much less Steve and Stark argue now.

“Also, if you’re gonna be like that, then I get the veto on account of how I died to help save the universe,” says Natasha.

“Okay! So, the roster of active Avengers!” says Rhodey, valiantly trying to keep the meeting on track. “Yea or nay?”

A chorus of _yea_ s ripple across the conference room, thank fuck.

“Good, great. So, next up on the agenda: the new Avengers buddy system.” A restive grumble and murmur fills the conference room, and Rhodey winces. “Yeah, we know, we _know_ , believe me, we know. This isn’t gonna be practicable all of the time. Not all of you are gonna be handling the kind of situation that makes it necessary, and there are still gonna be solo missions. But in order to comply with the new and improved Accords, we _do_ need everybody to have a partner in the field. Doesn’t always have to be the same partner! But you all gotta pick at least one.”

“It’s for accountability _and_ safety, kiddos,” says Stark.

“And if you don’t pick your own, you’re gonna be assigned someone,” warns Steve, which gives Sam a sudden and visceral flashback to his junior year English Comp class, when Mrs. Wood made his class do a group project on a Shakespeare tragedy.

Sam hadn’t anticipated that becoming the new Captain America would ever end up being a lot like that moment when you have to pick a partner for a group project in high school, when you’re simultaneously nervous as hell about not being chosen by anybody and also not feeling all that great about your own potential partners, because you don’t want to end up with the slacker (Lang) and you don’t want to be wildly outclassed (Van Dyne or Wanda), but you also don’t want to buddy up with the guy who’s way smarter than you and who you don’t really know (Banner or Strange) or the actual child who’s skipped like five grades (Parker), and you’re really just wishing your best friends (Steve and Natasha) hadn’t already graduated (aka retired from active duty), but they have, so you’re gonna have to go for the best and/or only option available to you, which in this case is probably picking your best friend’s other best friend (Barnes). And yet, here Sam is, facing just that scenario.

It’s preferable to being a fugitive Avenger, he hopes. It’s definitely preferable to being permanently dead and dusted.

“Uh, me and Hope are partners, obviously,” says Lang, and Van Dyne grins.

“Oh yeah? Maybe I wanted to pick Wanda instead,” she says, and Lang looks wounded for a brief moment before Van Dyne laughs. “Yeah, yeah, we’re partners.”

The conference room fills with chatter, and before Sam can relive the mortifying experience of English Comp and being assigned a partner, he says, “I pick Barnes.”

Barnes, who’s been slowly sliding down his chair while looking like he’s making every effort at disappearing—maybe by going fully under the table and making his escape, he’s a stealthy assassin type, he could probably manage it—straightens up, his eyes widening.

“What?”

Sam raises his eyebrows at Barnes. “You got any objections? I thought we worked pretty well together in the big battle against Thanos.”

That’s an understatement, maybe. Because it had been Barnes who’d quickly shaken off the news that they’d just come back to life after having been dead for five years, and it had been Barnes who’d offered a freaked-out Sam a hand up from the Wakandan jungle floor, and he’d been so rock-solid steady that Sam had managed to shove his impending freakout aside and get back in the fight. They’d worked together seamlessly to cover Steve, and then, when Stark got hold of the Infinity Gauntlet and Thor and the raccoon told everybody to _hold hands dammit, use the Infinity Stones together, all of us_ , Sam had taken Barnes’ hand along with Steve’s.

Almost three months later, and Sam still doesn’t have words for that experience. For the space of that minute, he’d felt both unimaginably powerful and infinitesimally small; he’d been profoundly connected to each and every single person holding hands on that battlefield, and for seconds that could have been an eternity, he’d been certain he understood each and every one of them, wholly and completely, and that they understood him the same way. Through their chain of linked hands stretching across the entire battlefield, he’d felt all of them, but most of all, he’d felt the storm of Steve’s furious love and grief, and the impossibly deep well of pain and hope and strength in Barnes. Then they’d all worked together to use the Stones to take Thanos and his army out, and bring Natasha and Gamora back, and it had all faded, leaving behind what had felt like the worst hangover of Sam’s life.

That faint but deep knowledge of Barnes has kind of lingered though, like something Sam had learned in a dream, enough so that it feels oddly right to partner up with him. Maybe Barnes has his own version of that knowing, because the shock fades from his wide and clear eyes, replaced with something more thoughtful, and maybe even nervous.

“Uh, no, no objections,” says Barnes. “Um, thanks.”

Steve beams at Sam and Bucky, literal tears sparkling in his eyes. “Aww, Steve, don’t—” starts Sam, and Steve slings an arm around him as he sniffs and wipes the tears away, waving his free hand as if it’s nothing.

“I’m okay, it’s okay. I’m just—I’m just so happy my two best guys are gonna be looking out for each other.”

Sam and Bucky share a faintly embarrassed look as nearly the entire conference room goes _awwwww_.

So maybe Sam’s picked the weirdo loner for this particular group project. It’s not like Barnes isn’t damn good at what he does, and putting Steve’s mind at ease about both of them being out in the field post-return from the dead is no small thing.

It’ll be fine, Sam tells himself. 

* * *

Being partnered up together means training together. Or at least, training in the same general vicinity, and that’s all they do at first. Barnes is still getting used to his new vibranium arm, and Sam has to get used to flying and maneuvering with the shield, so their first couple of weeks using the training facilities at Stark Tower pass easily enough. Barnes is quiet, sure, but Sam already knew that, and it’s not like they’re passing the time in total silence. They have slightly stilted conversations that are mostly small talk, and it’s fine. It’s definitely better than the extremely awkward conversation they’d had back in Wakanda after Barnes got defrosted and de-triggered, anyway.

_“I’m sorry about that time I tried to kill you on the helicarrier. Also that time in Berlin. I know I wasn’t, uh, in control of myself, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t hurt you and I want you to know that I’m sorry for that and that it won’t happen again.”_

_What Sam should’ve said in response to this painfully earnest, entirely sincere apology: of course, I understand, I accept your apology and I forgive you, I know it was all HYDRA’s fault._

_What Sam actually said: “What about that time you pulled my whole-ass steering wheel out of my car, while I was driving?”_

_“What?”_

_“You know, you on top of my car, me, Steve and Nat screaming, the whole terrifying fight situation on that bridge in DC….”_

_Sam was about to bring up the whole looking for Barnes for two entire years thing too, because he was honestly still kind of pissed about that, but then Barnes went pale and looked faintly sick. “I don’t remember that. I—I, uh, got wiped before the helicarriers, I think. I’m sorry.”_

_Well shit. “Sorry—”_

_“No, I’m sorry—”_

_“No, I should’ve known better—”_

_“It’s okay—”_

_“Let’s just, uh, start over, okay?” Sam eventually offered, and Barnes nodded, clearly relieved._

And then they hadn’t really talked to each other until the end of the world. Which was fine, it’s fine. Sam’s a friendly guy, he can make this work, and he’s not an asshole, he’s not gonna hold the shit Barnes has been through against him. If this is gonna be like an awkward group project in high school, it’s not gonna fail on Sam’s account.

They still don’t really have time to talk though, not one-on-one. They both spend a lot of time with Steve, and Barnes goes back and forth to Wakanda a few times, to help out there, and to have Shuri make some adjustments to his arm, while Sam’s pretty busy with Captain America stuff, so all in all it’s a solid month before they actually train together for real.

“So, since we’re gonna be partners and all, I think we should practice me flying with you,” says Sam the next time they’re in the training room together, and Barnes nods.

“Yeah, okay.”

This is a familiar bit of training, from way back during his time in the Air Force, so as he demonstrates with his wings and jetpack, his patter is practiced, and Barnes listens attentively, asking a few questions here and there. He’s also gratifyingly impressed, which is nice for Sam’s ego, and a sign that Barnes actually understands who his partner is.

Sam knows he makes flying look easy, but it’s really not. There’s a reason the EXO Falcon project got shuttered, and it’s not that it didn’t work, it’s that there just aren’t enough people who can do it. You gotta be light enough for the propulsion to handle, but strong enough to handle the wings’ own weight, and you have to coordinate all the many and varied movements it takes to keep flying and maneuvering while fighting. It’s a lot like being a fighter pilot without the benefit of a jet surrounding you, and without the benefit of an onboard computer to handle some of the piloting either. Redwing and his HUD help, sure, but Sam has to be ready and able to handle it all on his own. In short, anyone who tries to just put the wing pack on and go is in for a rude awakening and a swift and painful reacquaintance with the ground.

When it comes time to actually practice a few holds, Barnes tenses up the moment Sam gets close to him, and he stays tense. Sam tries not to take it personally—god knows Barnes has reason to be uncomfortable with touch, and as far as Sam can tell, only Steve and Shuri are allowed inside Barnes’ personal space bubble—and he does his best to keep the touches to Barnes’ back and arms brisk and professional. Tense or not, Barnes goes along with Sam’s directions, and they work out the most stable and secure positions for Sam carrying him or catching him.

It’s awkward, sure; it always is. There’s just no getting around the fact that Barnes is a big dude, an inch or two taller than Sam, with ridiculous long legs and a frame packed with muscle, plus he has a heavy prosthetic arm, and that all means the physical act of positioning and carrying him is unavoidably awkward on the ground much less in midair. It had been much the same with Steve when they’d trained together; hell, Sam had straight up dropped Steve more than a few times during training. And with Steve, he didn’t have to deal with hair getting all over his face, which, yeah, Barnes’ hair smells really good, all fresh and citrus-y, and it’s real soft and all, but it’s not helping the situation.

“Sorry,” mutters Barnes, after the third time Sam tries to discreetly spit out strands of Barnes’ hair that have escaped from his bun. “Been thinking about cutting it.”

“I dunno, the hipster white Jesus look kinda works for you,” says Sam as he sets Barnes back on his feet, grinning when Barnes looks affronted. “So, I think bridal carry is gonna be our best option for rescues. Let’s see if we can work something out that’ll keep your arms free for shooting…”

After a few days of practicing and testing out harness configurations, Barnes stops tensing up so much, and they’ve practiced enough scenarios that Sam feels comfortable about their performance in the field. He also feels incredibly sore, of course, because Barnes is not a lightweight, but all in all, it’s a good start to training together.

“Not bad, Barnes,” Sam tells him at the end of the week, and Barnes actually smiles, the sweetness of it enough of a shock that Sam’s glad he’s on solid ground, because otherwise it would have knocked Sam’s center of gravity just a little bit askew out of sheer surprise. Good surprise though. He won’t mind seeing this more often than Barnes’ usual careful calm.

“Thanks,” Barnes says. “Call me Bucky, please. At least when we’re not in the field.”

“Alright,” says Sam. “Then you better call me Sam. None of this Cap shit when we’re not on the job.”

Barnes’ smile doesn’t get wider, but the creases around his eyes deepen when he says, “Yeah, okay.”

 _Go us_ , thinks Sam, and mentally gives them both an A for effort and execution.

* * *

There’s a lot about being the new Captain America that’s nerve-racking and terrifying: the expectations of a nation, the pressure of honoring Steve’s legacy while Steve himself is right there, the sheer weight of hope and meaning and possibility of a Black man like Sam carrying the shield. All that’s the stuff that has Sam staring up at the ceiling at dark o’clock, sweating and worrying, having imaginary conversations with his dad and every single Black luminary in history.

 _So, like, what exactly should I do with the shield, as a Black man?_ Sam asks imaginary James Baldwin and imaginary Malcolm X and imaginary Harriet Tubman, and hell, even imaginary Frederick Douglass. _How can I be the best goddamn star-spangled man with a plan possible?_ He’s not sure he gets any useful answers—it’s all in his head, after all—and somehow he manages to get into an actual argument with imaginary Malcolm X. But he does feel better for thinking things through like that, and a couple google searches tell him that a number of people have already written the think piece versions of Sam’s internal debates, and most of the writers are even Black. He has plenty of real conversations too, with his mom and sisters, with his community, and that helps too.

Anyway, apart from all the existential Captain America stuff, which is scary enough, Sam has to contend with the shield itself, and how to use it.

Sam’s used it before, obviously, all the Avengers have. It’s not like it’s Mjolnir. Although, since being broken by Thanos and remade with the help of T’Challa and Stark, the shield has taken on a certain mythic patina. Still, symbolic significance aside, they can all lift the shield and toss it with reasonable accuracy, and using the shield as a shield isn’t exactly complicated. It’s not that heavy when it comes down to it, and you can throw it like a big frisbee, more or less. What’s harder to manage is the kind of crazy ricocheting and boomeranging stuff Steve can pull off. Steve assures him that it’s just a matter of practice, but training with Steve proves less than helpful.

“So how do you get it to ricochet back to you?” Sam asks him, and Steve shrugs.

“Oh, you know, you just—” he says, and flings the shield with seeming ease. It bounces off the training room wall, then a weight machine, and returns to Steve’s hand. “Like that!”

“Right,” says Sam slowly. “But, like, how. How do you know what angle to use?”

“I just eyeball it,” says Steve, totally unhelpfully. Sam narrows his eyes at him, and he hastily adds, “I practiced a lot with Buck, during the war. Seriously, it’s a muscle memory, you’ll know it when you feel it kind of thing. We’ll keep practicing, and I’m sure Bucky can help too.”

Steve does end up giving him some useful tips on shield-throwing form, and Sam practices until his palms are bruised and his arms are sore from the shoulder on down. He does a lot of running after the shield too when it bounces off of something and flies somewhere unexpected. After two weeks of near non-stop practice, Sam still wouldn’t exactly call himself good at it.

Shit, maybe Sam’s just gonna have to use the shield symbolically. Or as an actual shield instead of a giant frisbee weapon. Or maybe he could ask Stark or Shuri to rig up some kind of magnet…?

When it comes time to practice with Bucky, Sam’s shield throws are around 85% accurate in terms of hitting what he’s aiming at, but the bounces and ricochets...well, Sam hasn’t exactly gotten the hang of those yet. And just his luck, Bucky walks into the training room right as Sam has to duck the ricochet of his own shield throw gone wild. To add insult to injury, Bucky neatly catches the shield with his vibranium arm. Sam expects the clang of metal on metal, or maybe a ringing sound like a bell, but Bucky’s catch is mostly silent. Right, the force-absorbing properties of vibranium.

“Having some trouble with this dumb dinner plate?” asks Bucky.

“Kinda, yeah,” Sam admits.

“Yeah, so did Steve at first. You don’t wanna know how many times I had to run after this thing in the middle of some forest in France or Germany, or hell, in the middle of battle.” Bucky’s holding the shield with both hands now, his fingers cradling it gently by the edges, and he casts a half-fond, half-annoyed look down at it. “I get the symbolism and all, but a big round shield isn’t exactly the easiest weapon to use.”

“Got any tips?” Sam asks. “I’m having trouble with getting the rebounds and ricochets to work right.”

Bucky nods. “Yeah, it’s about the angles, and accounting for how the vibranium handles force. Here, let me show you.”

Bucky’s damn good with the shield, Sam learns. He doesn’t have Steve’s flair with it, but he makes up for that with an almost brutal economy of movement, and perfect aim. Sam supposes it shouldn’t be surprising that Bucky has good aim; he’s a sniper, after all, and just like his bullets always hit their target, the shield always follows the path Bucky wants it to. For Bucky, wielding the shield comes as easy as fighting with a knife, and Bucky’s terrifyingly good with knives.

Sam’s pretty good with knives himself, and yet everything Sam’s managed with the shield so far has only been through painful trial and error. Bucky says it’s about the angles, and theoretically Sam gets it, but the shield’s motion might as well be random for all Sam can calculate the trajectory of its rebounds.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” says Bucky, with complete earnestness.

Sam narrows his eyes and looks for any hint of condescension or insincerity in Bucky’s open and honest expression, and does not find it, because it turns out that when Bucky Barnes is not in active fear for his life and/or hard-won autonomy, his whole resting murderface situation isn’t nearly so bad, and also he appears to just be genuinely...nice. Which Sam knows, okay, you can’t be besties with Steve Rogers without also knowing that Steve thinks Bucky is one of the best people to ever exist. Steve had come back from Wakanda once, after Bucky’d been defrosted, practically in tears over how _Bucky’s still so kind, Sam. I worried HYDRA had taken that from him, but it’s still there, all of it_. Which is to say, Sam’s pretty sure all of Bucky’s encouragement is wholly sincere, and Sam’s an asshole for being annoyed by it. 

Sam grits his teeth. “Sure. Just gotta practice.”

So Sam practices. Sam practices a lot. He practices on his own, he practices with Steve, he practices with Bucky. Any time he’s not out there actively being Captain America—which is thankfully mostly about helping with post-post-apocalypse recovery efforts at the moment—he’s in the training room flinging the shield around. Sam doesn’t have superpowers, so that means the only way he’s gonna get better at this is through pure, persistent practice, and the blood, sweat, and tears of hard work.

And listen, Sam _meant_ it when he’d told Fury _I do everything he does, just slower_ all those years ago. Sam’s got nearly all the same skills that Steve has, and more besides. He can goddamn fly, he was pararescue, he’s a medic; he kept up with Steve for _years_. No way in hell is Sam gonna let the admittedly steep learning curve of this dumb patriotic frisbee defeat him.

It’s just frustrating is all. It’s especially frustrating when he sees some ridiculous shit like Bucky managing to bounce the shield off of five different points before plucking it out of the air on the rebound, like his life is a pinball machine and he’s aiming for the high score. The casual little toss of his shiny hair after such shield acrobatics doesn’t help matters any; it’s all very Elle Woods _what, like it’s hard_? Sam’s patience for it is wearing thin, even though he knows it’s not like Bucky’s trying to rub it on purpose or anything. At least, Sam’s pretty sure Bucky’s not doing it on purpose. Like, 80% sure. Bucky is still kind of hard to read sometimes.

“How long do I have to practice before I can pull off shit like that?” Sam asks him as Bucky hands the shield back to him.

“Oh, I’ve never actually practiced with the shield that mu—” Sam doesn’t know what his face is doing right now, but it must be bad because Bucky’s eyes go a bit wide and he immediately changes conversational course with a somewhat fixed, encouraging smile. “You’re getting there!”

 _Goddamn supersoldiers_ , thinks Sam, and tries to recreate Bucky’s throw. The first bounce off the wall goes okay, but then the shield pings off the next bounce wildly, zinging back towards them too far over their heads for either of them to reach. It clatters to the ground somewhere behind them.

“What was that you just said about me getting there?”

Bucky closes his eyes briefly, then opens them again. “Um. If it makes you feel better, I did try to use Steve’s shield as an actual shield that one time, only to be blasted out of a moving train to my supposed death.” Sam stares at him, unblinking, and Bucky grimaces. “So. Keep...trying?”

Sam shakes his head, maintaining eye contact the whole time. Bucky clears his throat.

“I’ll just, uh—” he says, and jogs over to fetch the shield, and offers it back to Sam with wide eyes and a faintly apologetic air.

Sam takes a deep breath and the shield, then he leaves the training room, not at all in a huff.

* * *

Anyway, Sam does get there, in the end. He sets up a training program with FRIDAY in the Tower’s simulation room, and with FRIDAY’s helpful lasers and holograms showing angles of impact and rebound, and that muscle memory Steve and Bucky keep talking about, it all clicks into place in Sam’s mind. He’s never going to manage Steve’s level of almost gymnastic flashiness, or Bucky’s brutal grace, nor can he match their super-reflexes, but flight gives Sam his own advantages: he can send the shield on rebounds with angles that are much wider than Steve or Bucky could ever hope to catch without wings, and he can use some new strategies with the shield too, like turning himself into a missile and dive-bombing from the air with it.

All the shield training pays off in the Avengers’ team training sessions, when Sam pulls off some especially tricky flying while throwing the shield combos, and earns himself a few rounds of actual applause, and the approval of Rhodey, which is always nice.

“Looking good with that shield, Sam,” he says once Sam’s back on the ground, and he pats Sam on the shoulder. “You’re really making that shield work for you in the air, good work.”

Praise from Rhodey is about 1,000 times better than any grade Sam’s ever gotten on a dumb group project. He beams and says, “Thanks, Rhodey.”

“Hey, I told you you’d get the hang of it! That was amazing!” Bucky says, and it’s a lot easier to accept his bright and beaming grin as sincere now.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam says, unable to keep a smile off his face. “And hey, thanks for the help, Bucky.”

Bucky’s smile goes downright sparkly around the eyes, like bright light on deep waters. “Any time. What else are partners for, right?”

* * *

The Decimation happened to the entire universe, not just Earth. Generally speaking, that particular fact isn’t super relevant to Sam’s everyday life. He’s Captain America, not Captain Planet, he fully intends to stay in his lane as much as possible. Unfortunately, aliens will not stay in theirs.

Despite the fact that Earth is, apparently, something of a galactic backwater, all the upheavals of the Decimation and undoing it and defeating Thanos have left Earth in the position of being something between a galactic rest stop and that lone house with the lights on at the end of a rural road when you’re hopelessly lost and need someone to just give you directions to the nearest highway that leads back to actual civilization. Which is to say, Earth gets kind of a lot of visits from spaceships in need of fuel, repairs, supplies, and/or directions. And sometimes these spaceships make somewhat bumpy landings.

This week, Earth is host to an unusually large number of said spaceships. Historically speaking, any number greater than one was in fact an unusually large number of spaceships to be visiting Earth, but hey, times are changing. For the better, Sam figures, because at least the spaceships aren’t attacking them, even if these particular spaceships’ current presence in the middle of Death Valley is somewhat inconvenient. The Avengers have been called out, because hey, that’s what they’re here for, to handle alien invasions and the like, but Sam feels like they’re either distinctly overqualified—or under-qualified, he supposes, it depends on your perspective—to handle.

“They just need a tow, apparently,” reports Wanda, whose magic makes communicating with the bipedal shark-looking aliens possible, thankfully.

“Okay, so, is intergalactic AAA coming, or what?” asks Sam, and Wanda shrugs.

“And the other guys?” asks Bucky, with a nod of his head towards the aliens who look like classic Roswell gray aliens, only in more colors than just gray and a lot taller, which makes them look oddly stretched out, and also like they’re too spindly to handle Earth’s gravity.

“We have translator microbes, we can understand you,” says one of the aliens, the shimmery lilac color of their skin glimmering under the desert sun. They gesture with delicate and long fingers at the sleek, teardrop shaped ship that’s carved a furrow into the desert sand. “This is our emergency shuttle, our main ship is on the way to retrieve us. We need only achieve orbit and our people will retrieve us.”

“Do you need repairs to get back in the air? I could take a look, or Tony can—” starts Bruce.

A dusky rose-colored alien waggles their big head. “No,” they say slowly. A wave of magenta moves across their head and face, and their enormous, inky eyes blink rapidly. “There is an emergency landing function, the ship is functional enough. It is only…none of us can fly it.”

“We can fly it!” adds the silvery alien who looks most like something out of an episode of the X-Files. “Out in open space, I mean, we can manage. But taking off from a planet and entering orbit…”

The three aliens exchange a glance, and their blinks have a distinctly dismayed rhythm as their skin tones go through a whole gradient of color changes that might be their equivalent of blushes. Sam kinda wonders if these three aren’t teenagers or something whose joyride got out of hand.

“Well, maybe we can help you with that,” says Bruce with an encouraging smile.

The aliens exchange another, longer glance. “We’re not certain…well, you do not seem to have any interstellar shipyards? Or vehicles capable of interstellar spaceflight?” says the lilac-colored alien.

The silvery alien adds, “Also, your planet is…quite small. Our main ship is, I think, too big to land safely on its surface.”

“Hey now, we have a space station,” says Sam, and he thinks the pink alien mutters _wait, is that what that thing in orbit was? I thought it was space trash_. God, Earth really is a galactic backwater, isn’t it.

“And we know people,” says Bruce. “Plus, we’re good at fixing things. We’ll get all of you back in space before you know it.”

The shark aliens say something, and judging by Wanda’s wince and the other three aliens’ nervous hand flutters, it’s not especially flattering.

“Or you can just wait here until the Nova Corps come, whatever,” says Sam.

There is not, apparently, an intergalactic equivalent of AAA. Usually, the Nova Corps would handle this kind of situation, because technically Earth is still under a kind of Prime Directive where aliens aren’t supposed to interact with it, but between the Asgardians, Danvers, and all the other aliens who’ve paid them a visit, that’s really only a technicality at this point. So a lot of calls are made and Bruce, Tony, and Rhodey are called in to work on helping with the repairs on the shark aliens’ ship with Wanda handling the translating, while Bucky consults with Shuri via kimoyo bead to see if the Wakandan talon jets can maybe give the other aliens’ shuttle a tow out into near Earth orbit.

“Can I take a look inside your ship?” Bucky asks the trio of maybe teenaged aliens, and they assent, showing Sam and Bucky into their shuttle.

Sam tries to make small talk while Bucky and a holographic Shuri poke around the shuttle’s cockpit. He wishes Scott were here. That guy can power through awkwardness and maintain cheerful friendliness like no one else, he might as well be Earth’s good will ambassador. But Scott and Hope are out on a mission of their own, so it’s up to Sam today.

He gets as far as some awkward attempts at hospitality and a “So, uh, did you get a chance to see the sights in our solar system? Jupiter’s pretty great,” before Bucky returns.

“I think I can get you back in orbit,” Bucky tells the aliens.

“Uh, what—”

“I worked it out with Shuri,” continues Bucky. “She’s gonna send over a talon jet with an EVA suit, then I can fly your shuttle up and get picked up by the talon—”

“Excuse me, since when are you an _astronaut_?” demands Sam.

Bucky frowns at him, like Sam’s the one who’s being unreasonable here. “I don’t need to be an astronaut for this. The kimoyo beads can interface with the shuttle, and from there it’s just math and reflexes. I can pilot, I can handle it.”

Sam almost calls bullshit on the pilot thing before he remembers, oh right. The Winter Soldier can fly any number of planes, jets, and choppers, HYDRA had made sure of that. Still, there’s a big damn difference between flying a jet and flying an alien spaceship, and Sam cannot believe he even has to point that out. There’s no way that Bucky can just— _fly an alien spaceship_ , sight unseen.

“Oh yeah? Well, I’m a pilot too, and that doesn’t mean I can fly a _spaceship_ into _outer space_ —”

“That sounds like quitter talk to me,” says Bucky breezily. “Shuri says it’ll be fine! Anyway, it’s not, you know, _space_ space, it’s just getting the shuttle in orbit. C’mon Sam, they’re just kids, they need help getting back to their folks.”

Bucky’s tone is casual— _too_ casual. Sam stares him down. Bucky stares back, nothing but guileless, which is somehow ten times more infuriating than his usual on-the-job intimidating neutrality thing. In fact, Bucky looks about twelve years old right now, because not only is he attempting to look the very picture of innocence, he’s also so excited he’s almost vibrating with it, a stark contrast to his usual calm stillness. Sam is not moved by how cute this is, he’s _not_. Because if Bucky gets his ass killed doing this, it is 100% going to be Sam’s fault, and Steve will hate Sam forever.

“Okay, well, if you crash the shuttle and die, I’m not saying a single nice thing at your funeral.”

“Yeah, okay,” says Bucky, already calling Shuri again.

And that’s that, all of Sam’s very reasonable protests are ignored. After just a few more hours of discussion with the stranded aliens and Shuri, and a bunch of kimoyo bead-enabled interfacing and/or hacking, Bucky flies the damn shuttle into orbit and returns to Earth like it’s no big deal, like Sam hasn’t just paced a groove into the hard-packed desert earth out of nerves.

“See? Everything went just fine,” says Bucky once he steps out of the talon jet, pulling off the helmet of his sleek _spacesuit_ and shaking his hair out. A whiff of sweet, citrusy smell wafts towards Sam on the early evening desert breeze. Somehow, he doesn’t have helmet hair, his hair still sleek and shiny. God, he could at least have the decency to look _frazzled_. Sam’s about to detail all of the ways it could’ve gone horribly wrong, when Bucky continues, “They’re gonna get a pick up in a couple days, they’ll be fine in orbit ’til then.”

“Oh yeah? And they’re not gonna crash into any satellites or ISS? Because you can’t just _fly into outer space like it’s no big deal_ —”

Sam maybe complains about it all the way back to Avengers Tower and then some, and Bucky lets him, mostly, which does _not_ make Sam feel better. Sam fully expects Natasha and Steve to back him up on what a terrible idea Bucky’s little trip to outer space had been when they return to the command center for debrief, but they don’t, because they are all insane.

“Aww, Buck, you got to go to outer space!” says Steve, beaming as he opens his arms for a hug. Which isn’t new, Steve’s a real hugger now, but what is new is the way Bucky fully flings himself into Steve’s arms, then starts bouncing them both up and down in sheer excitement.

“Steve! It was the _coolest thing ever,_ space is the _best,_ the future is amazing—”

Steve laughs, seemingly unsurprised by the decidedly uncharacteristic torrent of enthusiastic words Bucky subjects him to, and when Sam catches a glimpse of Steve’s face before he hides it against Bucky’s hair, he thinks he understands why. There’s only one thing that makes Steve glow with a happiness so bright that it hurts. This is Steve getting back a piece of the past he’d given up for lost: the Bucky Steve knew from when they were kids, innocent and happy.

Sam’s got a heart, okay? He’s not immune to said heart getting all warm and bigger or whatever at the sight of Bucky, who’s usually so reserved and solemn, being this damn excited. But _flying a spaceship when he had zero experience flying things in space, and then somehow acing it_ , Sam reminds himself. Ugh. Bucky is infuriating, even if he is also currently being kind of cute. Sam watches as Bucky laughs at something Steve says, making his nose scrunch up, and Sam adjusts _kind of cute_ to _extremely, disgustingly adorable_. Sam has seen this man viciously knife genocidal aliens, he reminds himself.

Natasha tips her head at Sam, a silent invitation to give Steve and Bucky some one-on-one BFF time, and yeah, fine, Sam’s not gonna begrudge them this moment. He follows Nat to the common area, where what had once been Stark’s fancy penthouse living room has become something between a kitchen, lounge, and cafeteria for the Avengers and associates who are headquartered in the Tower. Sam heads for the fridge, and spends a full thirty seconds staring inside it blankly before just pulling out a bottled smoothie.

“A _spaceship_ , Natasha! The man just flew an alien spaceship up into orbit, no training, no nothing!”

“What, like it’s hard? I’ve flown one,” says Natasha as she hops up to sit on the kitchen island counter, and Sam glares at her. She just winks and grins in response.

“Well, _I_ haven’t. Wait, am I the only one? Am I seriously the only Avenger without space experience? Oh my god, I am. Even the spider child has been to outer space! Shit, I’ve got to learn to fly a spaceship. Do we have, like, simulations for that?” he asks Natasha.

“Probably,” she says with a shrug. “Ask FRIDAY. And no, you’re not the only Avenger without space experience. Since when do you need to learn how to fly a spaceship anyway?”

“Uh, since it’s clearly become part of the Captain America job requirements on account of all these spaceships visiting Earth?”

Add it onto the pile along with all the other skills Sam has to work on and/or learn: using the shield, leading the team in the field, doing PR, catching up on the five years he lost…every time he thinks he’s got a handle on it, some new curveball is thrown his way.

“What, you think Steve can fly a spaceship? You think he ever really needed to, as Cap?” Natasha shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it, Sam. You have a team, that means all of you don’t have to know how to do everything. Everyone has different strengths and skills.”

“I know,” Sam says, because he does know, he knows he can’t do everything. And yet, he knows too that he can always do _more_ , that he has to, if he’s gonna be the one carrying the shield, if he’s gonna keep up with his super-soldier partner. “I’m still gonna put in some time with the flight sims.”

* * *

Sam puts in the work with the flight simulations until he’s reasonably certain he’ll be able to fly a spaceship should the situation call for it, and he keeps practicing with the shield, and he does all the new Captain America press, and it’s fine, it’s great, Sam is rocking this.

Hell, _they’re_ rocking this, him and Bucky. If this really was a group project, they’d definitely be getting A’s, because in the field, on missions, they’re pretty damn seamless. Not quite as seamless as each of them can be with Steve, but getting there. Because Bucky takes out threats about a second before Sam notices them, and Sam knows exactly when Bucky’s about to need an exit or extraction, and they can throw the shield back and forth mid-battle like it’s just a game of ultimate frisbee. They’re good partners during battles, and after them too: Sam handles most of the talking to the press after any public superhero incidents, while Bucky quietly takes care of any logistical issues like coordinating cleanup efforts and getting first responders to and from affected areas safely and quickly. Sam’s read the history books, which had often included the Commandos’ praises for Bucky’s skills as an NCO and Steve’s XO, and now he’s learning all about that firsthand, and he’s grateful for it, he really is.

It’s just—does Bucky really _have_ to also do shit like what’s currently on repeat on the nightly news. Because, sure, Sam had tossed Bucky the shield when he’d suddenly been in the AIM minions’ line of fire and needed the cover, but surely Bucky could’ve done something _slightly_ less flashy than sending the shield right back to Sam, somehow managing to take out every single armed AIM idiot along the way.

“Well now, if there was an Olympic sport in shield throwing, clearly the Winter Soldier would be getting gold for the USA,” says the newscaster. “What a toss!”

“Like skipping rocks on a lake,” marvels his co-anchor. “Beautiful. Can we get one more replay? Ah, yes. Perfect.”

And like, Sam is doing badass shit too, okay? Sam caught three people from a helicopter that was about to go down, in the air, while they were all falling out of the damn helicopter. Sam heroically yeeted Bucky onto a big rig truck full of bombs that would have crashed into a shopping center had Sam not stopped it with a delivery of pissed off Winter Soldier through the truck windshield, and that shit was _hard_ , because Bucky’s cyborg ass is really goddamn heavy. Sam saved a whole caravan of migrants from mutant scorpions in the Sonoran Desert, by being a one-man winged insecticide sprayer, which okay, sounds kind of dumb, but it had looked really fucking cool, okay, and those scorpions had been enormous.

All that badass shit just seems kind of underwhelming after round who-knows-how-many of watching Bucky calmly murderstrut his way through a cohort of terrified HYDRA operatives that they’ve flushed out of an abandoned munitions factory. Bucky moves through them like a particularly precise and graceful tornado of violence. Also, his murderstrut has way more hip action than can possibly be necessary. He’s beating up Nazis, not strutting down a catwalk in the finest all-black superhero couture available, this is ridiculous.

“Should we be…helping him?” asks Scott.

Bucky takes three HYDRA goons out with a single punch of his vibranium arm that he follows up with the knife in his right hand, both the golden seams in his arm and the knife glimmering under the harsh sodium lights.

“Oh wow,” murmurs Hope.

“He seems to be doing fine,” Sam says through gritted teeth. “This is therapeutic for him, probably.”

At least one HYDRA operative seems to have sense, because they try to run the fuck away. Sam’s about to sic Redwing on the dumbass, but no—Bucky whips out his pistol and drops the guy before whirling to kick another agent right in the neck.

“I mean, it is, yeah, but if you guys wanted to join in, that’d be great,” comes Bucky’s voice over comms, and goddammit, he doesn’t even sound that out of breath. Though he _does_ sound kind of annoyed. Whoops.

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” says Sam, and once the rest of them join in, they make short work of the remaining HYDRA forces.

“Thanks for the help,” Bucky says, once the factory’s been cleared and ATF is rolling in. There’s the barest hint of a sarcastic edge in his voice, and a line of hard tension in his jaw.

Sam narrows his eyes, a prickle of anger rising. Bucky can’t be pissed off about the mission, can he? It’s not like he hadn’t very obviously had it handled, all on his own.

Sam smiles at Bucky, off-balance now, and brittle with it. “Sure thing, partner. Seems like you had it handled though.”

Hell, Sam’s not sure why Scott, Hope, and him had even bothered to come along. They’d practically been superfluous, given how Bucky might as well be a one-man army.

Bucky doesn’t say anything; he just shrugs with tense shoulders and walks away, and Sam’s left alone with the bitter aftertaste of his own words, and an unease that lingers.

* * *

As they approach a year after what people have taken to calling the Blip—which, okay, that name isn’t the most promising sign when it comes to people meaningfully dealing with their trauma about the five years after Thanos’ genocide—the Avengers get called out on more and more missions. Between the new, reworked Accords and the planet’s general desire for some reassurance, the Avengers become the catch-all solution for any number of mildly strange to really weird situations that pop up, which means they do a fair bit of globetrotting. It’s a hell of a change from being a wanted fugitive on the run thanks to the Accords. Instead of being pariahs, now people all over the world are clamoring for the Avengers’ help, because they’re Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

Somehow, everywhere they go, Bucky knows the language.

Sam took Spanish in high school and college, and he’s got some conversational Arabic, Pashto, and Persian thanks to his time in the service, but that’s the extent of his linguistic skills. This has never been much of an issue, until recently. Because while Sam’s Captain America and proud of it, he’s not super proud of being a living embodiment of the loud American stereotype, the guy who never speaks the local language and always has to resort to comical gestures and talking way louder and slower than he should, and that’s really what he feels like when mission after mission has them going to places where the locals don’t speak English all that well.

Now, Sam’s not surprised when Bucky converses easily with the French farmer who reports that something fell from the sky into his lavender field. All that time traipsing through occupied France during the war presumably taught Bucky some of the language. And Sam already knew about Bucky speaking German and Russian—those were both thanks to the war too, and the whole Winter Soldier thing. Obviously he knows some Xhosa, after all that time in Wakanda, though Bucky insists his accent is “embarrassing.” Romanian Sam gets, because Bucky spent all that time in Bucharest, and once a guy knows enough Romance languages, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese are probably easy enough pick-ups.

But then there’s the Kurdish. And the Mongolian, then Vietnamese, and Urdu.

In Karachi, where the Avengers have been called in to help investigate a potentially HYDRA-affiliated, potentially enhanced ring of kidnappers who have been ransoming people, a lot of them teenagers, back to their families after they were returned to life, it’s the Urdu that’s somehow the last straw for Sam.

“Seriously? Since when do you speak _Urdu_?” demands Sam once Bucky’s finished talking to the distraught sister of one of the missing teens.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“What am I—the whole-ass new language you were just using to talk to her, you know, Urdu, the language people speak here?”

Bucky forehead creases up in confusion. “I—sorry, I didn’t realize,” he says, and his expression takes on a disquieting blankness.

“How many languages do you even know? Because if it’s any more than the ones I already know about, then maybe you should be considering a career change to translator or something.”

“I don’t know,” says Bucky quietly. “I didn’t even know about the Urdu until now.”

Bucky’s looking faintly ill now, and he’s rubbing at his forehead with a slight grimace. _Shit_ , thinks Sam, most of his petty annoyance draining away. He doesn’t even want to know how HYDRA shoved so many languages into Bucky’s head, does he.

“Well, it’s a nice surprise, anyway,” Sam says, trying to inject some cheer into his tone, but it’s too late. Bucky spends the rest of the mission being even more quiet than he usually is, like he can’t trust the words that would come out of his mouth if he did speak.

Quiet or not, it’s Bucky who blows the ransomers’ operation wide open, when he matches a call to prayer heard faintly in the background of one of the ransom calls to a specific muezzin, which is some Sherlock Holmes bullshit, but whatever, Sam’s not gonna resent anything that gets the victims to safety.

Sam leads the rescue operation, and when it turns out the kidnappers do have someone enhanced on their side, someone who can do some kind of cloaking illusion, Sam uses Redwing to direct the team through the seemingly abandoned apartment building that’s not abandoned at all. Spooky cloaking powers or not, infrared doesn’t lie, and Redwing’s electronic eyes steer them true. They strike fast and hard to apprehend the kidnappers—who it turns out are more HYDRA wannabes than actual HYDRA—and free the victims, with no serious casualties. Hell, they even manage to keep the property damage to a minimum.

He wants to stick around to make sure all of the victims are reunited with their families, wants more than just the photo-op moments immediately post-rescue, because the real work usually begins after the feel-good photo-ops, but the Avengers are first responders, not social services, as Rhodey often reminds him. With the bad guys in custody and the civilians safe, Sam and his team’s job here is done.

“Hey, good work on the mission,” Sam tells Bucky on the flight back to New York, because he still feels kinda bad about making Bucky feel bad, only to be answered with a diffident shrug, and a nearly inaudible _thanks._

Bucky follows it up with a slightly louder, “You too. We couldn’t have pulled off that raid without you.”

Sam nods and swallows down a sigh, and it mingles uneasily with the odd mix of guilt, resentment, and discomfort that’s weighing his stomach down. The mission went well, sure, but Sam’s head is still full of things he could have and should have done better, and he can’t shake the certainty that he should’ve done more.

Still, he thanks Bucky, and tries to convince himself that the silence that falls after the team’s post-mission check-in isn’t strained.

* * *

When they’re not dealing with the sad and frankly pathetic dregs of HYDRA, they’re dealing with AIM, and when they’re not dealing with either of them, they’re dealing with the Ten Rings. It’s all second rate villainy though, which is good for the team—it’s not exactly hard to deal with these guys—but it leaves Sam feeling antsy, like the other shoe’s bound to drop, and the more competent and terrifying versions of these shady organizations are just biding their time.

“They’re not,” says Natasha, when he shares his worries with her. “We did a pretty decent job keeping them from consolidating their power during the Blip, and HYDRA is too decentralized to manage anything big. It’s the cults and organized crime that you really have to worry about.”

Organized crime is more for law enforcement agencies to deal with. The doomsday and post-doomsday cults that have sprung up all over the place require a somewhat more delicate touch, generally speaking. The latest one they’re dealing with has actually managed to summon some kind of eldritch being though, and there’s no call for delicacy or sensitivity in dealing with that. Plus, the cultists undergo a pretty swift change of heart once they see the horror they’ve wrought in the form of the shadowy, eldritch abomination rising out of Lake Eerie. It’s got, just, like, a distressing number of eyes, and they are all blinking at different times and rates.

The team spends a couple of hours trying to take the thing down, and at some point during the skirmish, Bucky goes AWOL, no longer shooting out any of the thing’s seemingly endless supply of eyes. Sam’s decidedly peeved by this, because it means he has to dive and roll to dodge a swipe from one of the thing’s many limbs.

“Barnes, report, where the hell did you go?” demands Sam over comms.

“Gonna try something, gimme a few minutes,” Bucky says, and Sam swears. Now he’s gotta adjust their strategy on the, ha, fly _and_ try to make sure Bucky doesn’t get killed or eaten or whatever.

Scott goes big enough to go head-to-head against the thing, not that he’s all that effective because mostly he just gets in a slap fight with it. The rest of the team harries the eldritch monster while Scott keeps slapping assorted limbs down, until the monster abruptly dissolves into smoke.

“Please don’t tell me it just teleported,” gasps Wanda.

“Barnes, was that you?” asks Sam.

“Yeah, I stopped the summoning ritual thing, I think. It’s gone, right?”

Sam’s not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, though he does send Redwing up to make sure, and all of Redwing’s scans come back clear. “Seems like, yeah.”

When they all regroup on the lakeshore for clean up, Sam asks Bucky just what the hell he did.

“Oh, one of the cult people had this creepy old book? I skimmed it real quick and read the thing that seemed like it would banish the monster.”

Of course he just read the creepy old book. Of course. Who knows what language it was even in. He could’ve accidentally opened a hell mouth for all they know.

“Seriously?” says Sam, and Bucky shrugs.

“That seems dangerous,” says Wanda. “But I don’t sense anything, so…”

Hope, who’s wrangling a post-embiggening dopey Scott who’s mumbling nonsense about eyes, says, “Whatever, it worked, so thanks for risking your immortal soul or whatever by reading out of an occult book.”

“We’ll ask Dr. Strange to make sure we haven’t messed anything up,” says Bruce, before heaving a tired sigh of relief. “But good job, Bucky, that was good thinking.”

Bucky just shrugs again.

“Well, shit, you saved the day again, Barnes. Maybe you should be the one in the stars and stripes,” jokes Sam. “I’m starting to think you’ve got better qualifications for it.”

Sam expects Bucky to play along, to make some dry comment or another about Sam’s supposed qualifications, but instead, Bucky’s mouth goes tight, and he looks down, the sweep of his thick lashes covering any expression in his eyes.

“Yeah, sure, I’m real qualified,” he says, flat and toneless.

Okay, so Bucky’s clearly not in a joking kind of mood. Sam’s not gonna let that stop him though. Being team leader in the field means keeping morale up, after all.

“We could switch off,” Sam says with a grin, though shit, now that he’s said it, it doesn’t sound like a half-bad idea. It’d probably be too confusing though, the shifting call signs alone—

“What, Falcon Cap and Assassin Cap?” says Bucky with a harsh snort. When he looks up at Sam, Sam’s stomach gives an uncomfortable flop, because Bucky’s eyes have gone chilly with hurt and anger. “No thanks.”

Bucky turns and walks away, the line of his back too taut for his usual murderstrut.

“What the hell?” Sam wonders out loud, and the rest of the team look awkward and uncertain.

“Mean,” says Scott, squinting drunkenly at Sam.

“What, me?” asks Sam.

“You know what you did,” declares Scott, and the others murmur in agreement.

“Uh, no, I don’t actually!” he says, but none of the others will explain it, and the quinjet flight back to the Tower is strained and awkward.

* * *

After a year of being returned from the dead, Rhodey checks in with Sam about how things are going.

“So is this, like, a performance review, or just a chat?”

Sam and Rhodey are friends and teammates, but Rhodey’s also the head of the Avengers Initiative, so he’s also pretty much Sam’s boss. Part of the deal with the renegotiated Accords was that the Avengers would have a more explicit organizational structure; mostly that means there’s a lot more bureaucracy, but also that the Avengers have a bunch of support staff and some institutional checks and balances. Sam gets the need for accountability, even supports it, but you couldn’t pay him enough to take on the role that Rhodey has, even though he’d been happy to vote for Rhodey as head of the Avengers Initiative. Team leader in the field is about as much responsibility as Sam’s interested in taking, at least right now.

“What, this can’t be both?” asks Rhodey, and Sam just raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, it’s kind of a performance review, for bureaucratic reasons anyway. Mostly this is just a check-in. How’re you doing, Sam? How’s the shield treating you?”

“Not bad,” says Sam honestly, because now that he’s past the steepest part of the learning curve, he thinks he’s doing alright. “I only miss being a fugitive sometimes,” he jokes, and Rhodey gives him an unimpressed look even as his lips twitch into a smile.

They talk things over some more—how recent missions have gone, how the team’s doing, when construction on the rebuilding of the Avengers Compound will be finished-—and Rhodey concludes, “Well I’ve got no complaints, and neither does the World Security Council. The non-racist public seems pretty happy with you too.”

“So I’m getting an A on my report card?”

“Uh huh, with a gold star,” says Rhodey dryly, and Sam gives a cheer that’s only about 50% sarcastic. “Now, how about your partner? That working out okay? You two seem to make a pretty good team.”

“Yeah, we work well together,” says Sam, because he doesn’t doubt that if being an Avenger did in fact involve a report card, the entry for “Group Project with James Buchanan Barnes” would have a grade of A. A-, maybe, they probably lost some points on account of the property damage, but listen, is it really Sam’s fault that Bucky’s a heavy guy who sometimes smashes through roofs and such when Sam drops him off? Sam submits that it is not.

Anyway, by basically all objective measures, their partnership is going well. Sam’s not as close with Bucky as he is with Steve or Natasha, but they haven’t known each other as long, and they’re friendly enough. They’re doing fine, really.

It’s just— _Bucky is so competent that it hurts my feelings_ is not a rational complaint to have about a person, and yet. That’s kinda how Sam’s feeling. It’s not great. Sam’s having the belated realization that, in this whole Avengers as terrible high school group project metaphor, Sam hasn’t partnered up with the weirdo loner who’s moved back to town after a stint in rehab—no, he’s partnered with the quiet guy who’s the star of the track and field team that no one pays attention to, and is also at the top of most of his classes, and he is, maybe, kind of, giving Sam some kinda complex. Goddammit.

This isn’t a competition, Sam reminds himself sternly. This is about teamwork.

“I’m glad,” says Rhodey with a genuine smile. “I had some reservations on account of the whole, you know, Winter Soldier thing, but Barnes is doing good work. I’m gonna talk to him too, but you think he’s handling everything okay?”

“Yeah, he’s doing well, as far as I can tell,” Sam tells Rhodey. “He gets a little edgy about HYDRA-related missions, but I’ve got complete confidence in him. He’s handling his shit, you know?”

If Bucky has any struggles with superheroing, Sam’s not privy to them. He just knows that Bucky does in fact have an admirable and tenacious commitment to his continued recovery.

“Wakandan therapy really works miracles,” says Rhodey, with a wondering shake of his head. “Alright, thanks for your time, Sam. Keep doing what you’re doing. You’re doing the shield proud.”

“Thanks, Rhodey.”

* * *

The warm glow of Rhodey’s validation lasts until the small hours of the night, when the chill of dark and doubt seep in.

Is he doing the shield proud? He’s sure trying to, that Sam knows. What he doesn’t know is if it’s enough. _You’re only human and you’re doing your best, Sam_ , his mom would tell him. _That’s all anyone can ask of you._ Which was all well and good, those times when Sam had been stressing over school or the EXO Falcon training program or being a peer counselor. But now, Sam’s only human among people who are more than that, and Sam’s human best can’t possibly be enough.

Christ, sometimes Sam can scarcely keep up with his partner. His enhanced, super-soldier partner who can fling the shield better than he can and who can fly spaceships and speak a dozen languages and take out entire HYDRA squads on his own, all while his stupid hair looks perfect.

Maybe Sam’s doing the shield proud, and maybe he’s not. All he knows is that he can always do better. He has to do better.


	2. Chapter 2

Over a year out from returning from the dead and helping to save the universe, a solid half of their missions are still about dealing with the post-post-apocalyptic fallout. Sam’s not complaining—out loud, anyway—because things demonstrably could’ve been a hell of a lot worse. The occasional surprise portal that spits out eldritch monstrosities or other weird shit is a small price to pay for the return of half of the entire universe and the destruction of Thanos.

Dr. Strange says it’ll all settle down “soon”, that it’s just a consequence of what Thanos did with this universe’s Infinity Stones, and how they all used different timelines’ Infinity Stones to fix it. _Once this universe’s Infinity Stones reconstitute themselves, our universe will re-stabilize_ , Strange had said, with a faint edge of desperation that suggested the unspoken end of that sentence was _hopefully_.

Well, nothing’s re-stabilized yet, so the Avengers are on portal duty for the third time this month. So far, nothing’s come out of the portal that’s hanging in the middle of a once-quiet residential street in the Bronx. It looks creepy as fuck though, mostly because it doesn’t look like what Sam imagines a portal should look like at all. This is no swirly circle of light, nor even an obvious tear in the fabric of their reality; instead, it’s like a portion of the street is rippling with heat haze—and there shouldn’t be heat haze on a balmy spring day in May—and a bone-deep sense of wrongness radiates out from it. The normal street is visible behind what their scanners reliably inform them is a portal, and if you toss anything inside the portal’s 20-foot diameter, it disappears. And yet it still doesn’t look like a portal.

The whole thing is actively difficult to look at, which sucks, because that’s exactly what the Avengers are supposed to be doing here. NYFD have evacuated everyone in a three-block radius, and are standing by ready to help evacuate more people if necessary, so the Avengers are hunkered down behind a hastily constructed barricade in the middle of the street, waiting to see if some horrifying monster or alien army appears out of thin air.

“You sure you don’t just wanna send Redwing in there, take a look around?” asks Scott.

“Hell no, I am not risking my precious Redwing on whatever hellscape is in there!”

“Speaking of the hellscape,” interjects Hope, “are the scans showing us anything new? Barnes, anything from your vantage point?”

“Scans aren’t showing anything,” reports Natasha from ops. “Energy levels are starting to drop though, so maybe this thing’ll close up soon. I’ve got Jane Foster crunching the numbers, but she still needs more data before her portal model’s accurate.”

“All clear from up here,” says Bucky over the comms, as even and soft-spoken as usual.

If he’s having trouble keeping an eye on the eerie portal from his sniper perch on a nearby roof, it isn’t apparent in his voice. But then, Bucky’s voice basically stays at Youtube ASMR video level calm unless he’s actively engaged in punching people and/or aliens, it’s ridiculous. There’s an idea, thinks Sam. The PR team has been on their asses lately to seem approachable on social media, and there are only so many TikTok videos Sam is willing to do, but if he could just subject Bucky to the indignities of social media…Sam’s PR and/or prank ideas derail when the mid-afternoon light reflects strangely off of the heat haze shimmer in front of the portal, making Sam’s stomach lurch with something almost like motion sickness.

“I don’t sense any kind of intelligence coming through the portal,” Wanda says. “Maybe nothing will come through this one?”

“Doesn’t have to be intelligent to cause trouble,” mutters Bruce. “Remember the pterodactyls that flew through that portal in Atlantic City?”

Jesus, Sam wishes he could forget. He’d never wanted to reenact Jurassic Park, and he’d especially never wanted to share the skies with enormous pterodactyls.

“Please can we stop jinxing this whole situation. It’s bad enough that just looking at that thing is making me queasy,” pleads Sam.

“Unfocus your eyes,” suggests Bucky. “Motion’s the main thing we gotta watch for anyway.”

The comms channel fills with the team’s idle, slightly nervy chatter, as they all keep an eye on the wavering air in front of the portal. There’s a brief false alarm when they see a flash of light from the portal, but nothing comes out, not according to their eyes or their scanners. After a couple hours of nothing, Sam’s starting to hope something does come out of the portal, just to relieve the boredom.

Sam really regrets that thought when things do, in fact, start to come out of the portal.

He regrets it even more when he sees that the things coming out of the portal are…weird. Really weird. They look kind of crystalline, and they’re moving in ways Sam’s eyes aren’t happy about processing. They look a lot like those time lapse videos of ice crystals forming, only they’re person-sized, and the crystals keep shifting and growing as if to the beat of some unheard pulse. And if their eerie look isn’t bad enough, the sound they’re making is downright spine-chilling, like the crackle of frost forming, only crunchier and louder, and too fast. Sam full-body shudders just hearing it.

“Wanda? You getting anything from these…beings?” asks Sam, because as weird as they look, maybe they’re harmless and curious. After all, not all aliens are murderous and mean. The Skrull are pretty chill, disquieting shapeshifting ability aside.

Wanda sends a red tendril of power out towards the crystalline beings, and the light refracts strangely once it reaches them, making Wanda wince. The beings keep advancing out of the portal, until there are at least a dozen of them, which is Sam’s cue to pull out the shield.

“Maybe they’re silicone-based lifeforms?” suggests Hope. “Or something else that would form in regular crystals like that…”

“Their minds are a little bit like Vision’s,” murmurs Wanda. “But, um, if Vision had the mental capacity of a cockroach.”

“So…do I need to shoot them, or are we gently shooing them back into the portal?” asks Bucky.

One of the crystal beings suddenly grows a decidedly spiky and sharp looking limb, and promptly begins to hack away at a nearby car.

Yeah, no, Sam’s gonna call this one. “Shoot ‘em if they make a move towards us. Everyone else, keep the perimeter secure and tighten it in. We’re gonna try to herd them back through the portal, and if that doesn’t work, squash them like cockroaches.”

The team begins to move into formation to do just that, and Bucky hums dubiously over the comms.

“I’m kinda concerned about ricochets here,” he says. “Cap, get your shield up, everyone else, get to cover.”

And alright, that’s a fair point. Sam positions himself behind the shield and the others get behind the makeshift barricade. Bucky takes fire, just a couple of warning shots. The first bullet does in fact ping off of one of the crystalline beings, but the second lands in one of its limbs, cracking it like a mirror.

“So, okay, no guns from close range,” says Sam. “Stick with trying to smash them and herd them back into that portal. Barnes, only shoot if one of us is in trouble.”

“Readings suggest the portal’s going to close up soon, and I’ve got War Machine and Iron Man on standby just in case things go south,” says Natasha.

Things don’t go south, thankfully. Fighting the crystal robot things isn’t fun, exactly—Wanda’s right, they’re at about cockroach level of intelligence and nuisance—which, given the Avengers’ scale of alien threats goes from friendly and harmless to full-on genocidal, cockroach is pretty solidly on the more benign end of the scale. Mostly they just have to whack at the things while pushing them back towards and through the portal. Sam’s lucky to have the shield for this part. The vibranium absorbs the rattling force of the aliens’ blows, and he can use it to shove the aliens back towards the portal. Whenever one of the aliens gets a little too close with their huge and spiky limbs, a shot from Bucky rings out, cracking or shattering the limb, and soon enough, the team herds all of the aliens through.

“Just like sweeping spiders out of the garage!” Scott declares cheerfully.

“Weird comparison, but okay,” says Sam, then continues, “Alright team, let’s keep a tight perimeter and push back any new aliens that come through—”

Before he can finish his order, the portal dissipates. There’s no audible sound or flash of light or anything, just the quiet disappearance of that odd heat haze, and yet Sam’s certain the portal’s gone.

Natasha confirms it. “Portal’s gone based on the readings here,” she reports. “Do you have visual on it?”

“It wasn’t exactly visible before,” says Hope, while Scott grabs a broken off piece of the alien crystal beings off the ground, and tosses it where the portal had been. It doesn’t disappear, just lands on the asphalt with a clatter.

“Portal’s gone,” Scott confirms over comms.

Sam breathes a sigh of relief. He really hadn’t been looking forward to keeping an eye on the damn thing for the whole damn day, or longer.

“Good,” he says. “Okay, let’s do a full sweep inside the perimeter, make sure there aren’t any stragglers or anything. Redwing and I’ll go by air, everyone else, pick a quadrant and work through it. Barnes, you sit tight and keep an eye on where the portal was, just in case.”

A chorus of agreement goes out over their comms, and Sam sends Redwing on up before following him. He spends most of his flight paying attention to the readings from Redwing, keeping an eye out for any odd energy signatures or heat spots, and after an hour or so, he gives the all clear as he glides back towards their original staging area.

“All clear down here too, Cap,” reports Hope, and she’s echoed by Bruce, Scott, and Wanda.

“Barnes?” asks Sam. “You still on that roof?” There’s silence over the comms for long seconds, and just as Sam banks left towards Bucky’s last location, Bucky answers.

“Yeah, all clear from up here, just—gimme a few minutes,” he says, sounding distracted. And what the hell is that humming, buzzing noise coming over the comms?

Yeah, no, Sam’s gonna do a flyover. Given Bucky’s penchant for understatement, he may well be dealing with some fresh alien hell that he thinks is no big deal. When Sam lands on the roof of the apartment building that’s served as Bucky’s sniper perch for the mission, he sees Bucky doing something with a crate, his movements careful and slow.

“Please don’t tell me you have some horribly dangerous alien that escaped from the portal in there,” Sam says, and grips the shield, ready to throw it.

“Nah, just need to get this swarm of bees.”

“What. What are you—leave them alone! That can’t be safe.”

Now that Sam’s stepped closer, he can see the buzzing mass of bees that are currently surrounding a bit of trellis that must have been part of someone’s rooftop garden once. Sam’s not a huge insect fan, so it looks kind of creepy, though he supposes the humming buzz of the bees doesn’t sound angry or anything.

Bucky casts a chiding and disappointed look over at Sam. “They’re just honeybees. I spotted a beekeeper’s hive on the next roof over, I think it’s probably their bees, or at least, they’ll know what to do with them. It’s the right season for swarms, and if we don’t get these little guys to a new hive, they’ll starve and the whole hive will die.”

Before Sam can tell him to leave it to Animal Control or whoever to deal with, Bucky gently maneuvers the crate towards the swarming bees, setting it down under the trellis.

“C’mon,” Bucky coaxes softly, then he gives the trellis a few careful shakes, knocking the bees loose and into the box.

Sam startles, ready to make a run for it in case the bees go on the attack, but no, they just crawl happily into and all over the crate. There are a few dozen stragglers still clinging to the trellis, and with slow and impossibly gentle sweeps of his vibranium arm, Bucky brushes them into the crate too. A few bees are still hanging onto his arm, maybe attracted by the gleam of the prosthetic’s gold seams, and he nudges them into the crate with his right hand.

“There you go,” he murmurs, and his eyes crinkle up with his softest smile. He looks back up at Sam, seemingly unbothered by the box of wriggling bees at his feet. “Can I borrow the shield? I need a lid for this crate so I can make sure they’ll all stay in here.

Sam also wants the bees to stay in the damn crate, so he tosses the shield over, and Bucky catches it easily before setting it very carefully on top of the crate.

“Since when do you know about how to handle swarms of bees?” demands Sam, because seriously, what the hell, how many baffling areas of competency does Bucky have? How can he possibly know about bees and the appropriate procedures for handling a swarm of them?

“Since I lived on a farm for a couple years? The village had a couple of hives, I helped look after them,” says Bucky, entirely reasonably, and yet, Sam’s baffled fury remains. “Hey, can you fly us to the next roof over?”

“By _us_ you mean and your whole-ass box of buzzing bees?”

“Yes,” says Bucky, and has the gall to look at Sam like he’s crazy for questioning this request.

“Uh, no!”

And oh no, no, Sam cannot handle the big blue eyes of sad earnestness he’s getting from Bucky right now. The man is in full tac gear, looking every inch the dangerous Winter Soldier in every way, except for the tragic puppy eyes, and the cognitive dissonance is making Sam downright dizzy, his heart pumping inappropriately faster.

“Sam, saving the bees is very important,” says Bucky, with such soft-spoken sincerity that Sam, wildly, suspects Bucky of fucking with him. “Bees are crucial to the ecosystem, and their populations are really suffering on account of colony collapse—”

“Oh my god—” interjects Sam, but Bucky continues, undaunted.

“—and it’s really important to relocate them into a hive before their store of nectar runs out—”

“I am not carrying you and a crate full of bees, they don’t allow you to have bees in here—”

The reference, naturally, goes right over Bucky’s head. He frowns. “In where? We’re on a roof, and urban beekeeping is legal in every borough of New York.”

How does Bucky know that. How. Does he have a secret hive of bees? Honestly, Sam wouldn’t put it past him. Bucky lives in the same building as Steve, and their neighborhood is a weird mix of hippy and hipstery.

“Okay, that’s not what I—”

And alright, now Bucky is looking legitimately upset and Sam cannot handle that. Somewhere in Brooklyn during some support group meeting, Steve is suddenly feeling disappointed in Sam and he doesn’t know why, and Sam really strives to avoid disappointing Steve. Apparently the power of Steve’s _I’m disappointed in you_ face is not, in fact, contingent on him being Captain America.

“Are you really going to let these innocent bees and their queen die?”

There’s the slightest hint of a quaver in Bucky’s voice now, his eyes too big and pleading, and Sam winces. He’s not a monster, okay, he’s just understandably wary about flying with Bucky and a box of bees.

“Jesus Christ, fine. Fine! I cannot believe that you’re some kind of bee whisperer on top of everything else—”

Bucky’s face scrunches up in a ridiculously dumb expression of confusion. “What do you mean?”

A whole montage of Bucky’s hypercompetence plays out in fast-forward in Sam’s head: not just Bucky being very good at violence and shooting things and shield-tossing, but also the knowing every language thing, that time he brought in some seriously delicious home-baked bread and pie to the Avengers potluck, him fixing his own damn prosthetic arm, every time he’s casually done some serious math in his head and busted out the answer before Sam, the way he’s a genuinely patient and good teacher to the Spider Kid and assorted other teen superheroes they’ve run into, the way he’s been able to operate literally every single vehicle or aircraft they’ve ever run into...

A couple of pigeons alight on the now bee-free trellis. They blink at Sam, looking vaguely judgmental. One of them coos, and okay, it definitely sounds judgey. Something in Sam snaps.

“Nothing! It’s fine, you’ve got bee skills, I’ve got bird skills.”

“Okay…? Is this...some kinda birds and the bees metaphor?”

“What? No! Why would—how would that even—”

“I don’t know!” says Bucky, blushing now.

“No, it’s not about the birds and the bees. I mean, me and birds, we understand each other.”

Bucky narrows his eyes. “Like, figuratively, or—”

“Literally.”

Bucky’s clearly about to ask some more questions about Sam’s psychotic break and/or total lie, when Scott pings them on comms.

“Uh, we’ve got a lady here who’s really insistent on getting past the perimeter? Something about bees? Ma’am, they don’t allow you to have bees in here—”

Faintly, Sam can hear a woman saying, “But my hive! They’re swarming and if I don’t get them—”

“Tell her I’ve got ‘em,” says Bucky. “We’ll be down in a few.”

“Uh huh, You, me, and a few thousand bees,” mutters Sam.

* * *

The short trip from the roof down to the ground is very awkward, what with Sam having to grip Bucky under his armpits while Bucky holds the box of bees. At least Bucky’s cut his hair short now, so Sam doesn’t have to keep spitting out strands of Bucky’s too-thick and soft hair, and instead he just gets a nose full of whatever fancy haircare products he persists in using. Awkward position or no, they all land light as a damn feather, the bees seemingly unbothered by either the flight or the landing.

The team has regrouped at their original staging area, where assorted first responders are now bustling around getting ready to let the evacuated residents back in. There’s a news van parked a few blocks away, and Sam really hopes they didn’t just get a clear shot of his decidedly ungraceful flight with Bucky and the bees.

“Really feel like you oughta be the one dealing with this whole situation, Wasp,” Sam says, and Hope just grins and shakes her head.

“Yeah, no, my codename is not at all literal, I don’t have insect powers. Also wasps are not bees.”

“We rescue bees now?” asks Wanda with a bemused and slightly indulgent smile.

“Bees are important!” says Scott, leading a civilian towards them. “Like, in general, and also to this particular lady specifically.”

“My bees!” exclaims a youngish looking brown-skinned woman whose mass of curly hair is only barely held back by headband. She rushes forward to peer at the crate, still covered with the shield. “I can’t believe you saved them! You got them all? You didn’t get stung or swarmed or anything?”

“Yes, ma’am, this is the whole swarm. And they’ve all been perfectly well-behaved,” Bucky tells her, and she sighs in relief, even her curls seeming to bounce happily. “Was that your hive I saw on the next roof over?”

“It is, yeah. I wasn’t sure they’d swarm, and I really didn’t think they’d head over to the next roof to swarm, but I had a webcam by the hive to keep an eye on them, and then we had to evacuate, and I was so worried they’d be smushed by aliens or something—”

Bucky smiles at her reassuringly. “Well they’re all fine, ma’am. Did you need help getting them back up to your roof?”

She beams at Bucky, and Sam swears he sees literal stars in her eyes. Ugh. Sam has saved literal babies and not gotten this kind of reception for it.

“Could you? There’s an elevator, but it’s kinda too cramped, and there’s a lot of stairs.”

“I can handle some stairs,” Bucky tells her, and her smile brightens even further before she turns to lead Bucky into her building, chatting all the way.

“Bees,” mutters Sam as Bucky walks away. “Goddamn swarm of _bees_ , and the man knows what to do. It’s not right.”

Wanda’s eyebrows shoot up. “I wasn’t aware beekeeping was some sort of forbidden knowledge,” she says slowly.

Before Sam can clarify—not that he’s entirely sure how or what he’s going to clarify—Scott takes the opportunity to deliver a mini-lecture about bees, which ends up being surprisingly interesting. Sam only mocks him a little for it, because Scott’s enthusiasm is pretty genuine, and also Hope will absolutely punch him if he’s mean to Scott. Bucky returns soon after, the bee lady still at his side.

“I’ll send you some of the hive’s honey,” she’s saying, and Bucky gives her a bashful smile and a shake of his head.

“Aww, you don’t have to, ma’am—”

“I insist,” she says. “You saved this beehive, you definitely deserve first pick of its honey.”

“The metaphorical _and_ the literal honey, I’m guessing,” murmurs Hope as she unsuccessfully fights a grin.

Bucky clearly gives up on any polite demurrals, and then there’s a whole polite and sincere exchange of _thank yous_ and _your welcomes_ , until finally the bee lady leaves, but not before pressing a post-it into Bucky’s hand.

“Call me, or text me or whatever, if you’re interested in setting up your own hive. Or if you wanna talk about community gardens some more, or you know, anything.”

“Yeah of course, thank you.”

With one last brilliant smile, bee lady turns and returns to her apartment building, her hair bouncing happily the whole way.

Once she’s out of earshot, Hope stops bothering to try to hide her shit-eating grin, and says, “Awwww, she was flirting with you, Barnes!”

“What? No, she—we were just talking about bees, and gardening, and—she wasn’t _flirting_ —”

“She was flirting,” says the entire rest of the team in unison, and Bucky blushes bright pink.

“C’mon, you can’t be surprised,” snaps Sam, and Bucky’s shoulders hunch up.

“Shockingly enough, no one really flirts with the ex-assassin amputee who was recently a fugitive, so yeah, I’m a little surprised.”

Which is some bullshit, because Sam has witnessed no fewer than twenty-three (23)—now 24—people flirt with Bucky while he’s on the job, and that’s just the people who had the guts to talk to him, it doesn’t include all the lusty looks. And god knows how many people have thrown themselves at him when he’s off the job. Bucky has to have noticed. Sam’s about to say as much, but Wanda gets there first.

“Pssh, you’re a catch, Bucky Barnes,” says Wanda, winding her arm through his as they all head back towards the quinjet, and all the tension in Bucky disappears as he smiles down at her. Bucky indulges her like she’s his baby sister, and hell, they even look like they could be siblings. “You should call her back, she was cute.”

The rest of the team agrees, and Sam’s this close to instituting a new Avengers rule right here and now about no fraternization with civilians they save, because surely there’s some kind of inappropriate power imbalance or sexual harassment or something there, but then the NYFD captain in charge of the evacuations calls him over. Which is good, because Sam’s not sure he wants to be the guy who harshes the current team banter buzz with rule-making, and also he needs to figure out if he’s going to commit to his whole _I can talk to birds_ thing.

* * *

Debrief back at Avengers Tower goes quickly, what with there not being much to report beyond “portal opened, things came out, we handled the things, portal closed.” Sam writes up an after-action report and sends it off with plenty of time to spare to get to the weekly dinner at Steve’s place in Brooklyn. The night of the weekly dinner shifts around as needed to accommodate missions and schedules, but barring any urgent longer missions, it’s pretty non-negotiable: once a week, Sam, Steve, Natasha, and Bucky have a family dinner together at Steve’s place. Wanda comes too sometimes, if she’s not with Vision or at the Bartons’, and sometimes Natasha brings Sharon or Maria along; hell, even Shuri drops in if she’s in the States.

It’s usually a highlight of Sam’s week, a stable point in a world that’s still so changed Sam hardly recognizes it sometimes. This week, Sam’s wondering if he can beg off without making anyone worry. He’s feeling touchy and out of sorts, despite how well today’s mission had gone, and he’s not looking forward to a whole train ride with Bucky, because he’ll have to commit one way or another to his whole bird talking thing. He should just say it was a joke, right? Or an exaggeration. And god, what if Bucky brings it up during dinner…

Maybe if he says he’s just not up to schlepping all the way back to his place in Harlem after dinner…?

Bucky knocks lightly on the door frame of Sam’s official Avengers office space.

“Hey, you ready to go?” he asks.

He’s changed out of his uniform, and like it nearly always does these days, the sight gives Sam a little jolt. It’s the new short haircut, he thinks, and the stylish clothes. Bucky still can and does dress to disappear sometimes, but nowadays, more often than not, he doesn’t. He wears tight pants and jeans that show off his long legs, and shirts that are just a little bit nicer and more adventurous than the average t-shirt or button-down. Today he’s wearing a floral print shirt that he’s somehow managing to make look edgy with a slim cut leather jacket, and he looks disconcertingly modern and new, nothing like the Winter Soldier or any other version of Bucky Barnes that Sam has known. New, but good. Real good. It’s annoying. Like, way to rub it in, _oh,_ _I’m so competent and hot, look at me._

Well, Sam’s looking, and it’s distracting. “Sam?” prompts Bucky, and he startles.

“Yeah, sorry. Yeah, let me just grab my stuff.”

They take the subway, since it’s faster, and as usual, their fellow New Yorkers pay them no mind. It’s an unspoken rule of the city: no matter how famous you are, you don’t get bothered on the subway, not beyond the occasional smile or furtive photo anyway, and tonight’s no exception in their moderately crowded car.

“So…what did you mean when you said you had bird skills earlier?” asks Bucky. “Because I thought you said something about talking to birds, but maybe the bees’ buzzing was messing with my hearing.”

Here it is: an opportunity to walk back his dumbass, wildly inaccurate claim about being able to talk to birds. Because while Sam really likes birds, and actually knows a lot about them—he had an intense birding phase before he enlisted—he still can’t _talk_ to them. Not in any mutually intelligible way, anyway. And like, Sam’s aware that it’s not necessarily cool to be the Falcon and also be weirdly into birds—what’s cool is being able to goddamn fly. But what if Sam _could_ talk to birds? What if Sam could be something a little bit more than just your average, unenhanced human? Nothing flashy, nothing obvious. Just—what if Sam has hidden depths and random weird skills too?

“No, you heard right,” says Sam. There’s a deeply skeptical silence from Bucky’s direction. “Is it really so unbelievable that I have a super special super power you didn’t know about? Because it’s not like I knew about you and your whole bee thing. I’ve got skills and shit too, you know.”

“Right, but that’s not, like, a superpower, that’s just—farm stuff? And I know you’ve got skills, I just didn’t know talking to birds was one of them. None of the others ever mentioned it.”

God, when Natasha catches wind of this lie, she will literally never let him live it down.

“Yeah, I’ve kept it on the down low. Doesn’t come up that often, you know?”

“Okay,” says Bucky slowly, and while there’s some suspicion in the furrow of his forehead, he now seems willing to roll with this new knowledge. “Do you—what do birds even talk about?”

“Nothing that interesting,” Sam says, because there’s only so far he’s willing to commit to this little white lie. Sam’s not _delusional_ , okay? “Mostly it’s just about food and mating rituals, I guess, I learned to tune it out.”

“That’s cool.”

They sit together in silence for two stops. Sam fidgets. “You’re seriously just going to roll with this? Like, no big deal?”

“We’re on a team with two guys who call themselves Spiderman and Ant-Man. We’ve met a talking raccoon, and a talking tree.” Bucky gives Sam a sidelong look, and his lips curve up a fractional amount that might just be in Sam’s imagination. “Like you said that one time, everyone’s got a gimmick.”

“They can’t talk to insects though.”

Bucky shrugs. “If you say so.”

Sam’s really not sure what reaction he expected or wanted out of Bucky, but this zen acceptance sure as hell isn’t it. It is, somehow, more infuriating than outright disbelief would be. Does Bucky not even _care_?

“Enough about me,” says Sam. “Are you going to text bee lady? You two seemed to really hit it off.”

Bucky hunches his shoulders, sinking lower into his subway seat. “She was just grateful,” he mutters.

“No, she was into you, because you’re a hot superhero who goes out of his way to save innocent bees. C’mon, man. There’s humility, and then there’s being a dumbass, and you’re being a dumbass.”

Bucky blinks over at him, then tilts his head as if confused. “You think I’m hot.”

Sam scoffs. “I’m just stating an objective fact. If you like her, you should text her. Or are you really gonna try and tell me you’re good at everything but flirting?”

Bucky’s mouth opens, then closes, and his forehead furrows into a frankly adorable expression of bewilderment as he looks over at Sam.

“I can’t tell if that’s an insult or not?” he says.

Sam’s…not really sure either, if he’s being honest. “Whatever,” he says, and is saved from having to say anything else when they arrive at their stop.

When he risks a glance over at Bucky as they step out onto the platform though, there’s a thoughtful, considering kind of expression on his face, and for a moment, Sam thinks that expression is more dangerous by far than Bucky’s resting murderface.

* * *

After about fifteen minutes at Steve’s place, Sam realizes it would’ve been dumb to skip out. The familiar routine and comfort of dinner at Steve’s almost makes Sam forget all about today’s mission and his own weird feelings. The sight of Nat and Steve so relaxed and at ease, and the solid safety of knowing none of them are on the run or in danger, are more relaxing than the glass of wine Sam has with dinner.

It’s good to catch up with Steve and Natasha too. They’re both in and out of the Tower pretty often—Nat in ops and Steve for consulting and training—but after two years living near enough in each other’s pockets, Sam still feels like he barely sees them. Most of his non-Avengers interaction with Natasha comes in the form of texts nowadays, though they do manage to grab lunch together a few times a month. Steve spends most of his time doing volunteer work with counseling and rebuilding, and he’s taking art classes, and every time Sam sees him, he’s pleasantly shocked by how good peace looks on Steve. Also by how much Steve’s cooking has improved; tonight’s chicken pot pie is just the kind of hearty, stick to your ribs kind of comforting meal Sam hadn’t even known he was craving.

Which is all to say, Sam’s feeling downright loose and easy by the time the conversation comes around to today’s mission.

“Mission today went okay, right?” asks Steve, and for all that Sam and Bucky are sitting right in front of him, safe and sound, Sam gets that Steve needs more reassurance than that. He usually does, nowadays, and Sam and Bucky quietly make sure he has it.

Sam rushes to answer Steve before Bucky can say anything about Sam’s non-existent bird-talking superpower.

“Yeah, it was good. Nothing too tough, another day, another portal. Hell, we even rescued some bees.”

“ _We_? _I_ rescued some bees,” says Bucky.

“What, did you stop a beehive from getting squished or shot or something?” asks Natasha.

“No, Bucky here was on overwatch when he found a swarm of bees and safely relocated them, much to the relief of one very grateful, very flirty civilian urban beekeeper. Did you text her yet, by the way?”

Bucky ducks his head and pokes at a stray pea on his plate with his fork. The whole ducking his head move really doesn’t work so well now that he’s cut his hair; there’s nowhere for him to hide the faint pink staining his cheeks or the shy fan of his lashes.

“No,” he says, then, “It wasn’t a big deal. Just wanted to make sure the bees were safe, in case no one else could get to them in time. A swarm can die if they run out of nectar before finding a new hive.”

“How do you relocate a swarm of bees?” wonders Natasha, and Bucky shrugs.

“It’s not really complicated. You just find a box or something and knock ‘em into it, then get them settled in a new hive. The bees do all the work, really.”

Well, it sounds easy now that Barnes has put it like that, and yet, Sam still knows he’d never have managed it if it had been up to him.

“Sometimes you’re real Shelbyville, you know that, Barnes?” says Steve with a happy grin, and Bucky scowls. Judging by scuffle Sam can hear under the table, he and Steve are kicking each other like children.

“Shut up, no I’m not,” says Bucky.

“Shelbyville?” asks Sam.

“Indiana. Buck’s folks on his dad’s side are from there, they had a farm.”

“Visited over summers a few times,” adds Bucky. “But that’s not how I know about the bees, I lived on a damn farm in Wakanda, is all.”

“Like I said, your Shelbyville roots are showing.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up Mr. Goats Intimidate Me.”

“What—that’s not—I never said that! Goats do not intimidate me!”

Sam grins and sits back in his chair with his glass of wine, ready to appreciate the Steve and Bucky show, which is always good for learning some choice new hilarious and embarrassing shit about both of them. Natasha looks over at him, and they share an indulgent smile before she tips her own wine glass towards him in a silent toast that he returns with a grin.

Had he really been thinking of skipping this? With the good meal, the wine, and the company warming him, the thought seems dumb and embarrassing. This right here is exactly where he’s supposed to be right now.

* * *

A couple days later, Steve joins Sam on his morning run. Their runs together are no longer crack-of-dawn affairs like when they’d first met; instead, Sam usually gets in a good run in Midtown near the Tower before he heads in for the morning briefing, and sometimes Steve joins him if he’s in Manhattan for an early meeting. Steve even does Sam the courtesy of only lapping him a couple of times before actually jogging along with him.

They chat idly as they run, about how the Avengers are doing, how Steve’s liking his art classes, the things that still trip Sam up about post-post-apocalyptic life. When they pause for a water break, it hits Sam with vertiginous, displacing force: he and Steve have practically swapped lives. Now Steve’s a counselor who’s finally put the war behind him, and Sam’s Captain America, a little adrift in a world that’s a hell of a lot different than the one he’d known.

Well, Sam’s more well-adjusted than Steve had been, Sam hopes. He’s only missed five years, after all, and he likes to think he has some self-awareness.

His epiphany must show on his face, because Steve glances at him with concern. “Alright, Sam?”

“Yeah,” says Sam. “Yeah, I’m good. I was just thinking—remember when we first met, running on the Mall?” Steve nods. “We’ve kinda swapped places since then. It kinda surprised me, realizing that.”

Steve laughs, both rueful and wondering. “Yeah, I guess we have, haven’t we? You’re handling things much better than I ever did though. And you’re a better Cap too.”

“Aww, Steve, no—” Sam starts, but Steve cuts him off with a shake of his head.

“Your heart’s in it, Sam. I don’t think mine was, not since coming out of the ice,” Steve admits.

“Can’t exactly blame you for that. Especially after SHIELD turned out to be half HYDRA,” Sam says, and Steve shrugs.

“I’m just glad you’re not as, I don’t know, isolated as I was. And I’m really glad you’ve got Bucky to watch your back, and that he’s got you.”

“Yeah, me too,” says Sam. “Bucky’s a good partner, even if he considers rescuing some bees to be mission critical.”

“Hey now, bees are important for the ecosystem and all.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but seriously, he’s got beekeeping skills? On top of everything else?”

Sam stifles a wince, then, because he hadn’t quite meant to say that, and he’s not sure he wants to complain to Steve about his best friend being too competent. Sam’s aware it’s a dumb complaint to have. But to Sam’s surprise, Steve groans.

“Right? He’s good at basically everything, it’s so obnoxious.”

Oh thank god. Sam’s not just crazy, someone else has noticed that Bucky is too competent, and that it is a _problem_.

“Has it always been like this?” Sam asks, because maybe this is just a supersoldier serum, HYDRA training thing. He’s not sure that’ll make it easier to deal with Bucky’s annoying omnicompetence, but at least it would be an explanation beyond _yeah, no, he’s just that good_.

Steve scowls. “Pretty much. Somehow him thinking it’s not a big deal is more annoying than him getting all vain about it. But ever since we were kids, Buck’s always been top of the class, good at sports, good at dancing, great at his jobs…good at basically everything he tried.” Steve shakes his head, smiling a little now, and continues, “I mean, he’s not amazing at everything, I know that; he’s no artist, that’s for sure, and he’s awful at gin rummy and actually got a C in high school chemistry....anyway, most things come easy to Bucky and they always have. I used to get so jealous of him sometimes.”

“Really? What made you stop?”

“Oh, getting the serum, and the war, working together with Buck and the Howlies,” Steve says breezily, which is not the kind of answer Sam had been hoping for. “Didn’t need to have nearly as big a chip on my shoulder when I could finally keep up with him properly, and we both had bigger things to worry about.”

“Of course,” Sam says. “Alright, water and heart-to-heart break over, I gotta get back to the Tower or else I’m gonna miss morning briefing.”

* * *

If Sam were a better person, this wouldn’t bug him so much. So what, his partner has superpowers and is also just, like, good at everything from sniping to beekeeping. It’s fine, it’s great, it only makes their team stronger. Sam’s not jealous. After all, he knows the terrible price Bucky’s paid for his superpowers, knows that Bucky never asked for or wanted them. Sam wouldn’t want them either, _doesn’t_ want them. And if Bucky’s just, whatever, one of those people who’s naturally talented at many things while also being handsome and kind, that’s fine, Sam can’t hold it against him too much, especially not when Bucky’s not an asshole about it. He’s not competent and talented to _spite_ Sam. Plus it’s not like Sam doesn’t have plenty of his own skills.

But it’d be nice if Sam could have just one thing, you know? One thing that isn’t about the tech he uses, or the shield he’s been given.

If that one thing has to be Sam’s little fib about being able to talk to birds, well—whatever.

It’s not even a lie, really, when it comes down to it. Sam can talk to birds. Birds can caw and sing and chirp and screech back. Whether there’s mutual understanding there, well, who knows? There’s some, at least. Sam has a lot of bird knowledge, more than Bucky’s bee knowledge, even.

So yeah, he’s gonna commit to this.

* * *

It’s just Sam’s luck that after he’s worked himself up about committing to his talking-to-birds superpower lie, it doesn’t even come up. Sam had braced himself for Bucky spreading it around, which would necessitate a whole embarrassing escalation or admission, but Bucky does no such thing, of course. The man’s not exactly a gossip, and naturally, he’s conscientious enough to not go spreading news of Sam’s secret super power around after Sam told him he keeps it on the DL.

There’s also, Sam supposes, the possibility that Bucky just doesn’t care at all. Sam’s not really willing to entertain that particular possibility though. He’ll just settle for being relieved he hasn’t gotten any texts from Steve and Natasha about it, because this lie won’t last ten seconds if Natasha hears about it.

The upshot of the whole situation is that Sam ends up paying a lot more attention to all the birds he sees. Sam’s eye has always been caught by the flight of birds, ever since he was little. Sam used to be equally enraptured by everything from the fluttering flight of chubby little sparrows to the wheeling and graceful arcs of stately hawks. From the ages of four to seven—a worryingly long stretch of time, according to his older sister Sarah—Sam’s answer to the question of _what do you want to be when you grow up_ had been _a bird_! _Oh honey, you can’t be a bird when you grow up,_ adults would tell him. _Did you mean pilot?_

But no, Sam _had_ meant bird, and all those condescending adults who’d told him that wasn’t possible could suck it, because Sam is the Falcon and Captain America now, and he can goddamn fly, with _wings_ , like a bird. Talking to birds really isn’t that out there, in comparison.

So he pays more attention to birds over the next few days, watching them the way he used to. Pigeons are still boring as fuck, for the most part. They coo and peck at the ground and poop everywhere, and Sam can’t imagine that they’d have much of anything interesting to say.

Crows though, Sam figures crows have got to have all the good gossip and jokes. They’re playful assholes, smart enough to play tricks and to remember people. His great-aunt had befriended some crows once, feeding them crumbs and leftovers in her garden, and after a while, they’d downright courted her, leaving her little gifts of shiny things—mostly sparkly trash, but once, they’d brought her a ring: someone’s lost engagement ring, most likely. Great Aunt Marla had laughed and laughed, delighted: _why, they’re better beaus than any husband I’ve ever had._ Sam’s liked crows ever since.

He thinks there are more crows in the city now, though it’s hard to tell, amid the enormous flocks of starlings. In ancient times, people used to think you could tell the future based on the flight of birds, and looking at the flowing masses of wheeling and diving starlings, Sam can well believe it. There do seem to be signs and symbols in the murmurations’ graceful mass movement, a language written and erased with every collective movement of the flock, only just outside of his understanding.

It’s like he’s a kid again, his eyes always on the skies where he sees the robins and sparrows, the wheeling red-tailed hawks, the tiny but fierce kestrels. He tunes his ears to sift out the noise of the city’s ever-present mechanical and human life, and listens instead to the sparrows’ songs, and the crows’ caws, the hoots of the owls at dusk. All the knowledge he’d filed away in his mind as irrelevant to his current life resurfaces: bird facts about migration patterns and diets and mating rituals. Well, maybe all this knowledge _isn’t_ irrelevant. Maybe Sam doesn’t actually have a bird-related superpower, maybe it won’t do much to help him keep up with his super-powered partner, but Sam has some know-how, and he’s determined to put it to use.

* * *

Eventually, Bucky does notice Sam’s preoccupation with New York’s avian life, and so does the rest of the team.

They’re following up on reports of monsters in Central Park—probably nothing, but worrying enough that the Avengers have been called in just in case. Bruce and Hope are talking to the cops, and Scott and Bucky are poking around, but Sam’s got his eyes on the birds: a couple of ravens, the ring-tailed gulls in leisurely flight, and of course the ever-present pigeons and sparrows and starlings.

“Well?” murmurs Bucky, and Sam jumps. Jesus, he still moves like a ghost. Sam hadn’t heard him at all, and yet now he’s right beside Sam. “What do the birds say?”

Bucky’s tone is even, and when Sam looks over at him, his expression is as solemn as usual. In the bright sunlight of a cloudless morning in the park, his eyes are pale and almost glowing, like polished sea glass catching the light on a sunny beach. There’s maybe the slightest hint of curiosity and amusement in the fractional tilt of his lips, but his question seems to be serious, and Sam _has_ committed to this whole secret superpower fiction, so he figures he ought to give Bucky an actual answer.

Lucky for Sam, he doesn’t need to know the language of the birds to know what the birds are saying in a general sense, because they’re all unbothered, flying and paddling and pottering around, undeterred from their usual routines. If there was really any kind of monster in this park, the birds would be long gone.

“That the only monstrous things that’ve passed through the park recently were some dogs that chased the ducks. This one’s a bust, Bucky.”

Bucky nods. “Yeah, no unexpected tracks either. So I guess you could say we’re on a…wild goose chase.”

Sam stares at Bucky, who’s still looking calm and nearly somber—his usual expression on the job—and not at all like he’s just made a truly terrible joke. Sam narrows his eyes, and Bucky just blinks back at him, innocent and unbothered. Is he fucking with Sam? Sam really can’t tell. Whatever, Sam’s not going to dignify this with a reaction.

“So what’s this awkward silence about?” asks Scott when he comes over.

“Bucky’s terrible dad joke,” says Sam, and Bucky finally breaks, grinning. It takes all of Sam’s effort not to grin back; there’s just something too damn infectious about Bucky’s relatively rare smiles. “Think we can wrap this one up, I’m about 90% sure there are no monsters here. Unless you found something?”

Scott shakes his head. “Nothing but litter. What’s got you so sure? Is this like, cool wilderness tracking knowledge, or—”

“Sam asked the birds,” says Bucky.

“Okay?” says Scott slowly. “You can, uh, do that?”

For a brief moment, Sam contemplates coming clean about his lie. _Ha ha, it was just a joke! Definitely can’t talk to birds! That would be wild, if I could talk to birds and hadn’t mentioned it by now!_ The moment passes when he locks eyes with Bucky, who’s still grinning a little, and whose eyes have taken on a glint of challenge. Which is rude as hell, because how does he know Sam’s not telling the truth! Honestly, how _dare_ he not fully accept Sam’s fluency in the language of birds? _Go big or go home, Wilson,_ Sam tells himself.

“Yes. Yes I can,” Sam says.

“Wait, for real?” asks Scott, and Sam nods, still maintaining eye contact with Bucky. Bucky raises his eyebrows just enough for Sam to get the message of polite disbelief. Oh, it is _on_.

Scott, of course, immediately informs the rest of the Avengers, and soon they’re crowding around him, asking for bird talk details. Which is fine, because Sam is gonna sell the shit out of this little white lie.

* * *

“Why are seagulls like this,” demands Hope. “Is the literal sea monster we’re dealing with not enough right now, do the seagulls also have to be our enemies? Cap! What is the deal with the seagulls!”

“Uh, I can’t really hear them from here,” says Sam, and Hope turns to look at him in disbelief, because the sound of the seagulls’ braying and cawing is pretty damn loud even from hundreds of yards away. “I mean, I can’t make anything out.”

“We can’t hurt them! They’re just scared!” says Wanda, as she tries to maneuver a water spout she’s pulling out of the sea around what looks like hundreds of frantic seagulls swarming and screeching in one cacophonous mass around the thrashing monster churning the ocean waters.

This week’s portal has dumped some manner of kraken into the ocean off the coast of Nags Head, when the whole damn beach is packed with tourists and partiers. Sam had really hoped the Coast Guard could take care of it, but _sea monsters from another realm_ aren’t part of their charter or whatever. Ugh, Coasties. Well the (former) Air Force and (former) Army can handle it if they can’t. And okay, whatever, the Coast Guard _is_ saving the boats that are in trouble in the now choppy waters of the Sound, they’re just not quite the aquatic support the Avengers need right about now. Wanda’s improvised water spouts are keeping the kraken away from the boats and the beach for now, but that distraction isn’t going to last much longer. The Avengers are really going to have to do something more than survey the scene from the relative safety of the beach soon.

“The seagulls don’t exactly sound scared to me,” Bruce says. “Also, I am really not confident enough in my swimming and aquatic combat abilities to go after that thing. Maybe if Scott goes big?“

Sam looks out at the chaos of churning ocean and flailing tentacles out in the Sound, and wonders if there’s any way to end this other than turning the kraken into sashimi. And what the hell are all those seagulls doing anyway? They should be long gone with all this chaos going on, or at least they should be off pillaging the abandoned portions of the beach for food left behind by the evacuated beachgoers, not swarming around and above the kraken in such a thick throng that the sky beyond them is barely visible.

“I think we’ve got too many civilians around for Giant Scott to do his thing,” Sam says, visions of boats capsizing running through his head. “Barnes, can you get some shots in from here?”

“Unless you want to see a lot of seagulls turn into pink mist, I don’t have enough of a clear shot,” reports Bucky. “And if it’s like an octopus, then it’s got a brain in each of its arms. I don’t think there’s any shot that could take it out of commission all at once. Any violent death throes, and those boats out there are in the danger zone.”

“Thank you for that octopus fact,” Sam says, because of course Bucky also knows random facts about marine wildlife. “Any chance we can get it back through the portal?” he asks, though as he looks at the seagulls, he suspects he knows the answer.

“Portal’s moved, according to the readings,” says Scott. “It’s not in the ocean any more, it’s up in the air, about—well, about where all those seagulls are.”

“Yeah, I figured. I think the portal’s messing with the birds’ navigation.”

“What, do the birds have GPS that’s on the fritz?” asks Hope, incredulous.

“Kind of, yeah. They use the Earth’s magnetic fields and shit, and I’m betting the portal’s got their senses going haywire.”

“Can you, you know, help ‘em out?” asks Bucky. “Get the birds away and clear a path to the portal, so maybe Wanda can get the kraken back through it?”

Bucky’s being vague, but Sam knows what he’s alluding to: Sam’s nonexistent ability to talk to birds. Sam’s still genuinely unsure about whether Bucky believes his bird superpower lie or not, and as he squints over at Bucky, he sees no hint that Bucky is poking fun at him right now, and Sam can’t exactly call Bucky out about the possibility, not without blowing up his spot.

“I’m not sure I can lift the sea monster, it’s very large, and thrashing so much…“ she says.

“You don’t need to lift the kraken, you just need to lift the water,” says Sam. “Give it a little boost, and I’ll go, uh, talk to the birds.”

Sam has no idea how, exactly, he’s going to handle the damn seagulls. If only he really could just direct them to safety like any other group of terrified civilians. Whatever, he’ll wing it. Maybe if he uses Redwing as a kind of beacon…?

He takes flight, and heads for the wheeling and screeching mass of gulls, fiddling with Redwing’s programming along the way. Sam can’t actually talk to birds, sure, but Redwing can, kind of.

Sam’s ad hoc repurposing of Redwing’s EMP capability is clumsy; hopefully it’ll still generate enough of a magnetic field to help get the seagulls’ sense of direction back online. He sends Redwing on ahead into the vortex of seagulls, and really hopes his half-assed plan works, otherwise he’s probably about to get pecked and shat on by a bunch of seagulls. And that’s if the kraken doesn’t get him first.

It works, thankfully. Either the EMP hack or just the example of Sam and Redwing flying get the seagulls out of their frantic vortex, because they follow Sam and Redwing back to the beach, where they all promptly flap off to do normal asshole seagull things, like ransacking people’s beach picnics.

When Sam lands back on the beach with the rest of the team, Wanda’s got her arms up and out, crimson magic pouring out of her hands towards the water.

“Just, if you could do a kind of reverse flushing maneuver and get the kraken _up_ into the portal—“ Scott is saying, and then Wanda screams with effort and the water under the kraken heaves up like a particularly large and localized wave, launching the kraken up and through the portal. The water crashes back down with an enormous, roaring splash.

“We should probably move, unless we wanna get soaked,” says Bruce, already backing up further along the beach, out of range of the big wave heading their way.

“You should stay, maybe,” Bucky tells Sam. “You’ve got, uh, seagull shit all over your wings.”

“What?!” Sam extends his wings and twists to look at them, which is stupid, because of course he can’t see the other side that way. Bucky’s already jogging up the beach.

“Some nice saltwater will get that right off, probably!” calls out Hope cheerfully.

Sam’s still contorting himself and his wings to see if Bucky’s telling the truth or not when the wave hits him at nearly chest height, knocking him off his feet and treating him to a face full of briny saltwater. When he resurfaces, spluttering, a couple of seagulls circle over him, screeching, and Sam’s pretty sure he’s not imagining the faintly mocking tone of their calls.

“That’s the thanks I get for saving y’all’s feathery asses?” he mutters, then he heaves himself out of the water and clomps through the wet sand back towards his team.

“Bird shit aside, you’ve got a real way with birds,” says Bucky. “Those gulls followed you right away.”

Bucky’s tone is mild, as is his expression, yet Sam can’t help but read a hint of goading in the minute lift of his eyebrows. Sam narrows his eyes at Bucky, and shakes off some of the sand that’s swiftly getting lodged in uncomfortable places.

“What did I tell you? I’ve got bird skills, Barnes. Me and birds, we understand each other. I asked ‘em to follow me, and they did.”

“Should’ve asked them not to crap on you too,” says Scott.

Sam ignores him and recalls Redwing to his position with a tap of his gauntlet. Redwing, he notes, has no bird shit on him.

“Oh, the seagulls spared _you_ , huh?” Sam says. “Rude. Good job though.”

“Tony’s habit of talking to robots is spreading, I see,” says Bruce.

“Uh, excuse you! Redwing is more than a robot!”

“I thought Redwing was a drone,” says Hope. “And I think this is more about Cap’s habit of talking to _birds_.”

“Redwing is more than a drone too! Redwing is a _companion_ and an important member of this team, our literal eyes in the sky—”

The whole team groans, and honestly, the disrespect. He’s about to start in on a listing of all of Redwing’s many virtues when Bucky says, “Well I think Redwing is pretty cool,” and Sam smiles at him, surprised and vindicated, and maybe even a little suspicious.

Before any of them can keep the banter going, one of the Coasties jogs over to them, and then it’s time for yet another round of post-portal cleanup and reassurance.

* * *

“Is the bird thing why you’re so weird about Redwing?” asks Bucky one too-early morning when they’re in the locker room gearing up for a mission.

“What? I’m not weird about Redwing.”

Bucky cuts a speaking look his way. “Hey Scott, is Sam weird about Redwing?”

“Oh yeah, super weird,” says Scott without missing a beat. When Sam glares at him, he grins and gives Sam a thumbs up, like that’s a thing people still do. “But cool! Super cool!”

Bruce stomps by, looking slightly Hulkier than usual, clearly grumpy to have been roused out of bed so early in the morning. “Bruce, is Sam weird about Redwing?” prompts Bucky.

“Yeah, Redwing’s AI is really not advanced enough for the way you talk to it, Sam,” says Bruce. “Also, it’s not a literal bird, so your whole inexplicable bird language knowledge thing shouldn’t apply either.”

Bruce is still kind of annoyed that Sam will not let him test or in any fashion examine his (nonexistent) ability to speak to birds. He does, however, still believe Sam. Everyone does. Sam can’t quite decide if that’s a sign of just how weird shit has gotten, or his own innate trustworthiness. Sam hopes it’s the former, because if it’s the latter, he’s really going to start feeing bad about this whole thing.

“Don’t listen to them, Redwing,” Sam tells him as he locks the bird-drone in place on the Falcon jetpack. He folds up pretty small, and weighs barely anything, like he’s a hollow-boned bird in truth, especially when Sam leaves the munitions off him like today. “You’re the best robot bird companion a guy could ask for.”

When Sam looks up after Redwing’s in place, Bucky’s head is tilted at a considering sort of angle, atiny, secret kind of smile on his lips and in the just-visible appearance of the crows’ feet around his eyes.

Sam narrows his eyes at Bucky. “What?”

“Nothing! It’s just—cute.”

“Hell yeah, Redwing’s cute,” says Sam, a little mollified now. “Cute and deadly, like a kestrel.”

The crows’ feet at the corners of Bucky’s eyes grow deeper. “Uh huh. Just what I was thinking.”

Sam suspects he’s being made fun of in some manner now, but Sam can’t bring himself to care. He lets Bucky check the straps and fit of his body armor, then he returns the favor, making sure the slightly popped collar of Bucky’s neck guard is lying right, which necessitates his fingers brushing against the heat of Bucky’s pulse point. Sam’s fingers almost want to linger there—the morning is chilly, he supposes, he ought to wear gloves—but he adjusts the collar and steps back, surprised when he sees Bucky’s eyes trained on him, too steady and intent for this usual pre-mission routine, a slight smile still making his lips curve up.

“There. Now you’re battle-ready,” says Sam, and steps back, a flutter of nerves taking up residence in his stomach. Just pre-mission jitters, probably.

* * *

After one look at the scene awaiting them in Culver University’s main library, Sam says, “Oh, this is magic bullshit. This is 100% magic bullshit, so where the hell is Dr. Strange?”

Because all the rare and priceless artifacts in the library’s exhibit on ancient Symkarian jewelry are currently floating free of their secure displays, circling slowly around a blond woman in a fancy green dress, who is also floating. She’s examining each of the floating pieces of jewelry closely, like this is some kind of shopping trip and she’s looking for a specific necklace or whatever, but judging by the increasingly sharp waves of her hand, and the speed with which the floating jewelry is moving, she’s not finding it.

The Spiderkid, who was the one who’d made this particular Avengers Assemble call in the first place— _I was coming to the library to get some early studying in, but uh, there’s this magic witch lady who’s stealing stuff?? So, uh, Avengers Assemble, I guess?—_ does a kind of full-body wince and shrug, the weird big eyes of his spider suit surprisingly expressive.

“Yeah, I know, I tried calling Dr. Strange? But I guess he’s in another dimension right now?”

Jesus, the kid has really got to work on his uptalk problem. After a year you’d think he’d be less nervous around all the Avengers, but no.

“Is Dr. Strange literally _ever_ in this dimension?” gripes Bruce.

“Alright, take up defensive positions everyone. Let’s try some conflict resolution first, see if we can avoid a big expensive fight in this nice library,” Sam says.

“Yeah, can we please not destroy the library, I study in here, like, all the time,” says Parker.

“Ma’am,” Sam calls out. “This is a museum exhibit, not a Tiffany’s, the jewelry is not for sale. Can we help you with anything?”

She stops examining the jewelry to send him an absolutely scathing look from over her shoulder. She’s quite beautiful: long blond hair falling in shampoo-commercial style waves, green eyes, and that certain something that makes Sam think she’s not as human as she looks. Asgardian maybe, she’s got that bigger than life quality.

“No, you cannot,” she says, with haughty condescension. “I’ll be on my way once I find what I’m looking for.”

“Right. The thing is, ma’am, that these items are not for sale. They are priceless cultural relics of the Symkarian people. You can’t just take them.”

The woman laughs, a shockingly pretty sound. “Oh that’s cute,” she coos. “Just try to stop me.”

“So, that’s a no on the peaceful conflict resolution,” says Bucky. “I’ve got tranquilizers, want me to give it a shot?”

“Maybe let Scarlet Witch take this one,” Sam says, eyeing the faint shimmer of green energy that’s beginning to build around the woman.

“Yes, she’s using magic of some kind. Let me handle it for now,” says Wanda, and the red tendrils of her power begin to coalesce around her hands. She narrows her eyes and smiles, and with a twitch of her fingers, all of the artifacts stop circling around the blonde maybe-Asgardian woman. “This should stay between witches.”

The woman whirls to face Wanda, her green eyes so bright they’re practically glowing, her pretty face twisted into a snarl.

"Excuse me, I am no common witch! I am a _sorceress_! I am Amora the Enchantress, greatest sorceress in all the Nine Realms—“

"Who are you calling _common_?" demands Wanda, and then it is _on_.

The rest of them can’t do much more than take cover and attempt to keep the artifacts safe while the sorceress versus witch showdown rages. With the dueling red and green flashes of Amora and Wanda’s power, the battle looks inappropriately festive, like some kind of Christmas fireworks show gone wrong.

“So, like, just _how_ priceless are these artifacts?” asks Scott breathlessly, as he shrinks then gets big to avoid getting hit by stray blasts of Amora’s power. “Because, uh, I’m thinking we’re not getting out of this one without a lot of property damage.”

“Anyone got a clear path to the sorceress lady?” Sam asks, and is answered with a chorus of nos. “Parker, can you web her?”

“I tried earlier, before you guys got here, and no joy. But maybe now that she’s distracted—“

Parker shoots some of his web gunk at her, and Amora shrieks, wheeling around and dropping back to the ground when it lands. All of them try to press the advantage—Sam throws the shield, Wanda throws a blast of power, Bucky takes a couple shots with the tranq gun—but Amora lets loose a blast of magic, and none of their attacks land. The shield comes flying back at Sam, and the tranq darts are waved aside. Amora’s ire seems to be reserved for the admittedly kind of gross web gunk Parker uses.

“Oh, this one fancies himself a spider,” she says viciously. “Let’s see how well you do as a spider in truth.”

And then, with a flash of green light that almost looks like a lightning strike, Parker is replaced by a spider the size of a damn dog. And not a small dog either, but like, a labrador.

“Oh, that’s not right,” Sam says as the spider—shit, that’s probably _Parker_ —waves two of his too-many limbs.

“How _dare_ you,” seethes Wanda, because she’s pretty protective of Parker, and then the magic-on-magic fight is in full swing again.

Sam orders Hope, Scott, and Bruce to fall back; there’s no use keeping more people in the line of magical fire, not when they can’t protect themselves against magical transformations. Meanwhile Bucky’s making a game attempt at getting Spider Peter to safety, though judging by the spooked expression on Bucky’s face, he’s working real hard at not having a freakout about being in such close proximity to a giant spider. Sam would make fun of him for it, but his own hindbrain is shrieking at him about how he should _kill it with fire!!_ so he really can’t judge.

He shifts his attention back to the fight, where Wanda and Amora are still trading magical blows, and a lot of the artifacts are still careening around in the air, higher up now, towards the top of the library’s high ceiling, as if Amora is playing a magical game of keep-away. Most of them only have the expected sheen and sparkle of precious metals and jewels, but there, high up near the library’s skylight—one of the artifacts is glowing gently: it’s a wide-cuffed silver bracelet with some sort of pale, moon-like jewel set in it. Safe bet that’s what Amora is here for, Sam figures, so when he judges her distracted enough by the fight, he stows the shield on his back and takes flight to grab the bracelet.

The bracelet is almost in reach when something yanks on Sam’s wings. He tries to use his jetpack’s thrust to break free, only for the force yanking him to fling him around to face Amora.

“A man who thinks he can fly like a bird,” she says, and the smile on her face makes Sam go cold. _Oh shit_. “A man who _wants_ to be a bird, perhaps? Well, I can grant you that wish.”

“No, wait—!”

But it’s too late. His whole world shifts and shivers and shudders, and his body—he feels squeezed and stretched, and then abruptly, lighter, impossibly light, and when he opens his eyes—when had he closed them—everything is different, his whole body is different.

And he’s falling, the shield and the EXO Falcon wings and Redwing falling beside him.

“Sam!” he hears someone call, frantic, and he recognizes that voice.

New instinct kicks in, and he flaps his new wings, real feathered wings, holy shit, as he tries to get his bearings. It’s not easy. Everything about his senses is different, and his vision—all the colors have gone strange, and he could swear there are more of them too. It’s too much, and too many competing instincts clamor inside him: to get to a high place, to get out, to protect his team and finish his mission, to hide, to fly and fly and never stop—

“Sam!” someone calls again, and he turns towards the voice, sees the gleam of gold, sunshine bright, and a flash of blue as clear as the sky—Bucky.

It steadies him, enough that he remembers why he’d been in the air in the first place. The bracelet’s still floating there, the battle between Wanda and Amora starting to tilt in Wanda’s favor judging by the amount of red energy in the air, and he flies up and up until he’s at the skylight. Flying is so much easier like this, almost like he and the air are part of each other, and he takes a moment to revel in it. Only a moment though, as he circles once, twice, and then he dives for the bracelet and snatches it out of the air. He wings straight toward Bucky from there, and drops the bracelet into Bucky’s gleaming vibranium hand, then perches on his forearm, and grips it tightly with his talons. It doesn’t feel like a good idea to be flying around right about now, not with all that magic still being flung around. Also, he feels weird and he wants everything to just stop for a while.

“Yeah, okay,” says Bucky, his right hand hovering protectively over Sam. “Just—stay here with me, Sam, we’ll—we’ll fix this.”

Sam sure hopes so; for now, he’s too overwhelmed and confused, his bird thoughts beginning to overtake his human thoughts, and his bird thoughts tell him to tuck to his beak into the feathers of his neck, so he does, and the dark is a comfort, along with the murmur of Bucky’s soft and steady voice, the light and gentle touch of his hand.

* * *

Some time later, he doesn’t know how long, the darkness changes to a gentle wash of red, and like sliding into a warm pool of water, he’s back in his human body again, Bucky’s hands on his shoulders to steady him.

“Sam? You okay?” he asks, his eyes wide and concerned.

“Yeah,” Sam says, almost surprised to hear his own voice rather than the piercing call of some bird. For a moment, he feels the weight of his now solid bones keenly, feels the pull of gravity, the warmth and solidity of Bucky’s hands on his shoulders. He misses the wings, maybe, but all in all, Sam prefers being human. “Parker, is he—“

He turns, looking for Parker, and sees Wanda helping him to his feet, human again, with the normal number of limbs and eyes, thank fuck.

“Amora’s gone,” reports Wanda. “But she didn’t get what she wanted, and we’re all the right species, which probably makes this a success.”

Yeah, okay, Sam will take that win, sure.

“Yay,” cheers Sam. “Go team.”

* * *

Dr. Strange shows up not long after, which seems like too little too late, to be honest, and Sam’s about to tear him a new one for it, because seriously, he has got to be more reliably available when the Avengers need him. But Strange takes one look at the bracelet, declares it the Sorcerer Supreme’s business, and takes it, before promptly stepping through a portal again.

“You better do the damn paperwork for that!” Sam calls after him, then sighs and resigns himself to a long day of clean up and conciliatory conversations with librarians and curators.

“You sure you’re alright?” asks Bucky, eyeing him with wary concern, as if feathers are going to sprout out of his back any moment now.

“Yeah, I’m good,” says Sam, then adds, “Uh, thanks for, you know. Keeping an eye on bird me.”

“Sure, yeah, of course. Partners, right?”

Sam nods, relieved that they can leave it at that.

“Hey, what kind of bird was I anyway?” he asks.

Bucky smiles, and it’s a new kind of smile, one Sam’s not sure he’s seen on Bucky’s face yet: fond, but oddly wry too. “I haven’t got your bird skills, but I’m pretty sure you were a falcon. Like you were ever gonna be anything else.”

That makes a funny kind of heated and pleased shiver race down Sam’s spine, a zing of surprise and happiness, because yeah, falcons are one of Sam’s favorite birds, and his call sign is important to him, so he smiles back at Bucky.

“I dunno, I’m Captain America now. I could’ve been a bald eagle!”

“Nah, no way. You made a real cute falcon though.”

“Cute! Excuse you, ferocious raptors are _not_ cute—“

Bucky laughs, and as they walk out of the library into the bright afternoon, Sam doesn’t miss hollow bird bones and real wings at all, not when he feels this light in his own familiar human body.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam doesn’t notice anything is different, at first. After getting the situation at the library sorted out, the team heads back to the Tower for the usual post-mission routines: a quick exam in the infirmary, where the doctor on call gives Sam the all clear— _100% human!_ she declares cheerfully—and a short press conference, followed by a bunch of paperwork and brief check-ins with Rhodey and Nat. Once all that’s done, Sam goes straight from the Tower to the subway, and on to his apartment in Harlem. He spares half a minute to observe that the city seems indefinably _louder_ , like there are more people around in the already dense environs of Harlem, and all of them are talking. It’s a fleeting observation though, no prickle of alarm in it because the noise isn’t tense or restive, and Sam’s thoughts are quickly overtaken with wondering if the current contents of his fridge can be combined into a reasonably healthy and tasty meal or not.

It’s not until the next day that Sam realizes his brief transformation has had some lingering side effects.

Sam lives in a third-floor walkup in a building with fifteen other units; it’s never entirely quiet in the building much less his neighborhood. Still, he’s not accustomed to waking up to this much noise, especially not at this hour of the morning. He can fuzzily make out what sounds like three different conversations, all of them seemingly happening in the vicinity of his fire escape and his bedroom window.

“Mom mom mom mom mom I’m hungry I’m so hungry is there food yet—“

“Yo! You gotta come look at this bro! It’s so shiny, I gotta have it, I gotta put it in my nest—“

“—is she looking at me? Oh gosh, I hope she’s looking at me, I practiced this tail thing so much—“

Sam frowns into his pillow. That’s…weird. And not at all like the usual kind of thing he overhears in his neighborhood. For one thing, no one talks about their nests or tails. Also, it’s six in the morning, how many people are even up and about at this hour? He shrugs it off as he gets out of bed and gets ready for the day.

By the time he goes on his run, he realizes something seriously weird is going on.

Because Sam’s Harlem running route is usually fairly quiet, at least on the conversation front. Today though, over the usual hum and rumble of city traffic, Sam hears a lot of chatter. Like a lot. And when he looks around, there really aren’t enough people to account for all the conversations he’s overhearing, to say nothing of the contents of those conversations.

“I am building the best nest in Harlem. No, not just Harlem, the best nest in all of Manhattan! Now, gotta find me something blue, that’ll really pull it all together—“

“You’re goin’ to the Financial District?! What, you got a death wish? There’s peregrine falcons out there, they’ll eat before you even can even think of flapping your mangy wings—“

“The eating’s good there, Vin! And what’re the odds—“

“You see that fancy new duck everyone’s been talking about? Overrated, if you ask me—“

Sam slows down, looks around for the source of these frankly weird snatches of conversation, and doesn’t see any likely possibilities. There’s another runner a dozen or so yards ahead of him with chunky Beatz headphones on, so she’s not talking, and there are a few people in the crosswalk up ahead, too far to hear clearly, and he just passed a couple guys unloading boxes from a truck, but all they’d been saying was _shit, it’s upside down, hang on—_

“She’s into me, I’m telling you she’s into me!”

“Bullshit! A nice parrot who’s got it made in the Bronx Zoo? No way is she into a schmuck like you! How’d you even get in to see her anyway?”

“Love finds a way!”

A _parrot_? What the fuck? Sam cranes his head, searching for whoever’s just confessed to being into a _parrot_ , when he runs through a passel of pigeons who have descended on a bagel that’s lying on the sidewalk.

Instead of the flutter of disgruntled pigeon coos he expects to hear, he’s met with an indignant chorus of, “Hey, we’re eating here! This bagel’s ours!”

“If it’s on the ground it ain’t human food no more!”

Oh no, thinks Sam, still running, now breathless for more reasons than just cardio. He hasn’t been hearing _people_ talking this morning: he’s been hearing _birds._ Or no, not just hearing them, _understanding them_.

Well, shit.

* * *

Sam spends 37 minutes in full on denial, before he realizes that if he really _can’t_ understand birds, then he’s just straight-up lost it and is in the midst of a pretty serious mental health crisis. Which isn’t impossible, he supposes, but given the givens of his weird life and the fact that he’d been recently magically transformed into a bird, he’s left with the somewhat surprising reality that nervous breakdown is _less_ likely than the fact that he really can talk to birds now.

This is some next level be careful what you wish for bullshit.

Whatever. He’ll just talk to Wanda and surely she’ll be able to fix it—only she thinks he really _can_ talk to birds, like, that it’s his legit if dumb superpower. And there’s the other moral of this ridiculous situation: lying is bad. Lying gets you twisted up in all sorts of ridiculous situations, none more ridiculous than lying about having a bird-talking superpower, and then developing said superpower and finding out that, actually, it’s kind of a lot to deal with.

It’s been less than a day though. Maybe he’ll get used to it, or it’ll wear off. He’ll just…ignore it for now. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?

* * *

“Look at him. Look at that ridiculous, featherless _human_ , thinking it can fly like one of us! It ain’t right! It’s unnatural!”

“Aww, c’mon, it’s doing pretty good! That was a nice dive just then.”

A contemptuous screech. “It didn’t even use its wings to get out of the dive! That contraption on its back did it! That’s cheating that is, that’s not flying.”

Sam, who’s currently dodging bullets, does not appreciate the color commentary from—he twists in a tight corkscrew, so he can take a quick look around—a couple of basic hawks perched on a power line.

“It’s doing its best,” says one of the hawks. “I think it’s brave, to try to fly as a featherless human!”

_Hell yeah I am_ , thinks Sam. _That hawk is wise_.

“Brave? More like lacking the sense nature gave an ostrich.”

Ugh, and this hawk is an asshole.

“Cap, watch out!” Bucky calls out, and Sam spots a damn _missile_ coming his way. Where the hell did this jumped-up militia of white supremacists get _missiles_? He puts on a burst of speed with the jetpack—which is vastly superior to just relying on thermals and the wind, thank you very much, you dumb hawk—then dips low to avoid the blast when the missile blows, the very tips of his wings just skimming over the ground before he pulls up again.

“Oh, that was nice. You gotta admit that was nice,” says the wise hawk once it settles back on the power line, and the asshole hawk grumbles, but it does stop shitting on Sam’s truly excellent flying skills.

Later, on the ground, Bucky’s glaring at him, half-pissed and half-baffled.

“Sam, what the hell, how did you not spot that missile heading right for you?”

“Uh, just got distracted for a sec, sorry.”

* * *

“Did you _see_ , Kaylee is cheating on Bradford _again_.”

“No!”

“Yes! With little Eleanor’s piano teacher this time!”

“While Eleanor is _there_?”

“They send Eleanor to her room so they can discuss music, but I never seen anyone discuss music like _that_.”

“Isn’t Eleanor’s piano teacher a _lady_?”

“She _is_!”

Sam doesn’t know what’s weirder: that the pigeons sound an awful lot like the pigeons from the Animaniacs cartoons his little cousins used to watch, or that they’re apparently inveterate gossips. And here Sam had thought pigeons would be boring. Also, _damn_ Kaylee. With your kid’s piano teacher?

“Sam! Sam, did you hear me?”

He startles, and glances back at Steve, who’s actually pacing him during Sam’s cooldown for once, and looking kind of annoyed right now.

“What? Uh sorry, I was just—woolgathering, I guess. What did you say?”

“I _said,_ I was thinking of getting a dog from the shelter. I was gonna take Bucky with me to pick one out, but if I take him, we’re gonna walk out with literally all of the dogs—“

“So Ricardo over at the bodega on 39th, you know Ricardo, he always eats his lunch outside, real messy about it, I love it, anyway, he told Marta that Mia left Juan again, only this time, she kicked _him_ out and tore up all his soccer jerseys—“

Is _this_ what pigeons do all day, apart from shit on things and peck around for food? Gossip?

“So can you?” asks Steve.

“Huh?”

Steve narrows his eyes and purses his lips in a distinctly pissy fashion. “ _Sam_ , can you—“

Sam catches up with the actual human conversation he’s ostensibly participating in right now. “Yeah, no, sure, I’ll go with you. Shelter, dog, got it.”

* * *

Sam really hadn’t banked on birds being so damn distracting. There are a lot of them, and they’re all always having their own conversations, and Sam’s not sure which is worse: when those conversations are really interesting, like the city-wide pigeon gossip network, or when they’re incredibly boring, like the many, many bird chats about food and where to find it, and the equally common discourse about mating.

He should’ve lied about being able to shapeshift into a bird or some shit; sure, that lie wouldn’t have lasted long, but it’d be better than being stuck with a bird language superpower. This really is an incredibly dumb superpower, Sam is beginning to realize, and he has no idea why he’d ever thought it could be cool.

Then he makes the mistake of talking back to the birds.

“Could you not?” Sam says through gritted teeth as a small caucus of crows peck curiously around the body that’s washed up on the Gowanus Canal’s bank.

It’s the fourth body in three weeks, and this wouldn’t be Avengers business, except for how it’s been viciously mauled, just like the other three. The scene is gruesome enough that Sam has to really fight to keep his gorge down, though in all honesty, he’s not sure if the smell of the body or the canal is worse.

“Nothing human did that,” the NYPD had confidently declared, before dumping the case in the Avengers’ laps, so now it’s Sam and Bucky who are out here poking around along the canal while they wait for the coroner to show up.

“Could I not what?” asks Bucky, turning away from his investigation of the embankment towards Sam.

“Not you, the damn crows,” Sam says absently. He puts his hands on his hips and frowns down at the crows. “You guys, seriously, this is a crime scene. No eating the body.”

The crows titter, murmuring among themselves for a moment as they occasionally glance at Sam with their beady black eyes, then one of them hops closer towards Sam.

“We’re not gonna eat it. We’re scavengers, sure, but we got some dignity! Just curious is all!”

“Yeah, okay. You guys got any idea what did this?”

“Seriously?” mutters Bucky, and Sam ignores him. A lead’s a lead.

“Didn’t see nothing, other than the body floating down the canal,” says one of the other crows. “Probably came out of the sewers though. There’s some talk lately, about things in the sewers. We steer clear.”

“What kind of things?”

“Bad things. Things that don’t look right, things that don’t look like you humans. Not the right color, y’know?”

Great. Maybe there really are gators or crocodiles or whatever in there. Though surely any alligator or other predator would’ve just eaten the body, rather than leave it all torn up like this. And what do the crows mean about not the right color? Goddammit, if even crows are racist…

“What do you mean not the right color? Am I the right color? What color are the bad things?”

“Sam, seriously, what the hell—” starts Bucky, and Sam flaps a hand at him to shut up.

“Oh, you’re fine, you’re normal,” says a crow.

“The bad thing is just wrong!” says another crow. “Doesn’t look like how any of the rest of you look. I dunno what color you’d call it.”

Okay, well that covers a lot of possibilities, from weird clothes to aliens. “Alright, thanks.”

When Sam turns back to Bucky, his arms are crossed and he looks peeved. “So? What do the birds think?”

There’s an edge to his voice, and a distinctly dubious emphasis on ‘birds’. Great. Bucky doesn’t believe him, probably hasn’t believed him from the start. Which hey, is actually kind of hurtful. Because okay, yeah, Sam _had_ been lying. But Bucky couldn’t have been sure of that! How dare he not believe Sam about his once-nonexistent and now totally existent superpower! Though wait—if Bucky’s assumed Sam’s been lying about this the whole time, then why is he only getting annoyed _now_?

There’s a moral in this somewhere probably, something like the boy who cried wolf, only now it’s the Sam who tried to talk to birds.

Whatever. The important thing here is that Sam has a lead, thanks to his no-longer-fake superpower.

“The crows say there’s talk about dangerous not-human things in the sewers. They say they’re not the right color, whatever that means,” Sam tells Bucky.

“Right,” says Bucky, his voice flat. “Listen, I get that you’ve got this whole bird gimmick going, and that you’re real good with them, but I think it’s going too far when we’ve got four people who’ve been _killed_ by—“

Color, thinks Sam, some half-remembered fact stirring in his mind.

“Birds see different colors than us, I think,” says Sam, ignoring Bucky and taking out his phone. He googles bird vision, and is immediately vindicated by the results. “Ha! Birds have tetrachromatic vision! They see into the UV spectrum! That’s what the crows meant!”

“How does that help us catch who did this?”

“We’ve got two clues: the sewers, and that our suspect looks different from humans in the UV spectrum. It’s a start!”

“You want we should spread the word, ask around?” asks one of the crows, and Sam turns back towards them.

“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”

Bucky’s eyebrows inch up from being just incredulous to being pissed and incredulous.

“Well?” he demands.

“The birds’ll keep an eye out for us,” says Sam.

“Oh, okay, well if the _birds_ are going to have a BOLO out on our suspect, obviously our job is done here.”

Sam crosses his arms. “There’s no call for sarcasm, we’re still gonna investigate.”

“With help from the birds,” says Bucky, his voice totally flat.

“You’ll see,” Sam tells him, with, okay, probably entirely unfounded confidence.

Why not, right? Go big or go home. Anyway, it couldn’t hurt, could it? Surely he and Bucky can handle this with or without the avian support.

* * *

Once the coroner’s report comes in, and once Sam and Bucky review the case files for all the deaths, it’s pretty obvious that the killer isn’t a standard human, if they’re human at all. The victims have all been ravaged by claw marks, for one thing, and the placement and depth of those marks doesn’t correlate to the average human hand. The possibility of the injuries having been inflicted with a weapon is also ruled out when the coroner finds fragments of some kind of claw in the wounds.

“They’re claws from a reptile, I can tell you that much,” the coroner tells them. “But I haven’t been able to get any usable DNA from them, so I can’t tell you what kind of reptile.”

“Shit, are there actually alligators in the sewers?” wonders Sam, and the coroner looks at him with weary condescension before shaking her head.

“Alligators don’t claw their prey like this, they bite. These poor folks would be missing limbs and organs if a gator had gotten them. But cause of death was effectively blood loss from the wounds for all of the victims, no indication that anything, y’know, ate any of them.”

“Anything in common between the victims, apart from cause of death?” Bucky asks.

“They were all found in or near bodies of water. But physically? No, not beyond what you or I would have in common with the average New Yorker, anyway.”

Bucky’s mouth ticks upward in a grim little smile. “You and Cap here, or me? Because I’m not your standard human.”

The coroner flushes, her eyes darting towards then away from Bucky’s prosthetic.

“Me and the Captain,” she amends. “The victims were all more or less healthy for their age; Johnson had hypertension, Rivera had the beginnings of arthritis. If any of them were, uh, enhanced in any way, it’s not something that showed up in post-mortem exams. They’re just three men and one woman, all different races and ages.”

Sam and Bucky ask a few more questions, and the coroner agrees to run more tests. They leave the morgue with more questions than answers.

“So if sewer gators are out as a suspect, we’re looking at some kind of reptile monster going around killing people for no reason,” says Sam.

“Looks like it, yeah,” Bucky says, in a tone that also says _this might as well happen_. Given their lives and jobs, Sam hears that tone a lot.

“We’re gonna have to go in the sewers, aren’t we,” says Sam with a sigh. Maybe they could convince Parker to do it?

“Probably,” he says, then he glances sidelong at Sam, a sharp challenge in the pale flash of his eyes. “Unless your bird friends come through with a better lead.”

“They’re working on it, okay? We can start with, uh, more traditional mystery-solving methods in the meantime.”

“Uh huh, sure.”

* * *

Bucky suggests retracing the victim’s final hours as best they can, in the hope of seeing if there’s any sort of geographic commonality between them, and to establish if the reptilian creature or creatures responsible for the deaths have any kind of easily discernible hunting ground. Sam agrees, and the next day they traipse around Brooklyn and Queens. Sam had figured this would involve some good old-fashioned shoe-leather investigation, walking the streets, asking questions. But when they leave the Tower the next morning, Bucky doesn’t head for the lobby, he heads for the garage.

“Oh c’mon, no way are we driving out to Brooklyn or Queens at this hour. The train’ll get us there with way less hassle,” Sam says.

Bucky looks over his shoulder at Sam, and gives a short and sharp shake of his head. “Nita Gupta did food deliveries, and she did ‘em on a Vespa. She went all over Brooklyn the day she went missing. If we wanna retrace her steps, we’re better off taking my bike. Unless you really want to spend the entire week walking all over Brooklyn.”

Sam does not. But he’s also not sure he wants to spend the day clinging to Bucky’s trim waist. That seems like…a lot. Just a lot.

“Alright,” he says. “But you better not let us get stuck in any traffic.”

Bucky grins, bright and sharp, and the hint of recklessness in his smile is distinctly concerning.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make good time.”

* * *

“What’s with you and Steve and motorcycles, man? Was riding one some kinda 1930s Brooklyn dream for both of you?” Sam asks, mostly rhetorically, as they exit the elevator into the Avengers’ portion of the Tower garage.

A penchant for motorcycles aside, Steve and Bucky’s approach to them seems to be pretty different. Steve manages to look rugged and all-American when he’s on a motorcycle, and he prefers the American-made vintage bikes. Bucky favors the sleeker motorcycles built for speed, and he’s sure as hell not going for the all-American look: dressed in head-to-toe black with his hair swept back in a modern take on the greaser style, he looks downright dangerous. Not Winter Soldier dangerous, no; Bucky looks more like the epitome of a risky thrill’s danger—like taking the turn too damn fast, like diving into uncertain waters without looking, like flying up and up, not knowing whether the thermals will carry you.

It’s…distracting. Yes, that’s the word. Distracting. And _unnecessary,_ goddamn.

Bucky tosses Sam a helmet and says, “Steve’s an adrenaline junkie. Me, I just like motorcycles because they’re a lot more maneuverable than a car. Better for getaways.”

“Uh huh. And it’s got nothing to do with how you look like real hot shit on a bike, huh?”

“Do I?” asks Bucky with an infuriating smirk as he straddles the bike. The fabric of his tight black jeans strains at the thighs. “Thanks, Sam,” he says, before putting his own helmet on. Which only makes Sam’s attention shift from his hot bad boy face parts to his thighs where they grip the bike.

Ugh. Of course Bucky’s good at this too, the whole motorcycle riding, looking like a hot bad boy thing.

“You coming or not?” Bucky asks, and Sam says, “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”

Sam puts his helmet on with a certain amount of grim resolve, and sits behind Bucky on the bike.

Bucky, damn him, just says, “Hang on,” then peels out of the garage like an entire SWAT team is in pursuit.

So Sam hangs on, obviously. He’s been more up close and personal with Bucky than this, during training and when he catches or carries Bucky as he’s flying, but at least then he has flying to focus on. With Bucky driving, Sam has all the time and attention in the world to notice the heat of Bucky’s skin through his clothes, to feel the muscles of his back and torso shift as he steers the motorcycle. And as if that isn’t bad enough, Bucky’s giving him a hell of a ride, so fast that anyone who’s not as much of an adrenaline junkie as Sam is would probably be screaming in terror.

“Showoff,” says Sam, breathless and grinning, as they dismount and take their helmets off. Because he’s the worst, Bucky has the nerve to wink at him.

“I gotta keep up with your flying somehow, don’t I?”

* * *

Nothing seems to link the victims together at first glance, or second, or even third. Their lives and social circles didn’t overlap or even intersect. After consulting some detailed maps, all Sam and Bucky can conclude is that the main connection between the victims is the proximity of water and major sewer lines to their last known locations.

The only real point of overlap they find is when they retrace Nita Gupta’s entire last day of deliveries, which does end up overlapping with Juan Rivera’s last day, but only because Gupta had picked up an order from the same inexplicably trendy grilled cheese sandwiches-only restaurant that Rivera had gotten lunch at. It’s not so much a lead as it is evidence of how damn much people like grilled cheese. Still, it ends up being a worthwhile stop if only because the small flock of pigeons pecking away at sandwich crumbs near the restaurant’s outdoor dining patio have some intel for Sam.

“Hey, it’s the guy, the flying guy!”

“Marco, go tell him! Tell him what you saw!”

Sam ambles on over in the direction of the pigeons. Bucky inhales in a deliberate sort of fashion, like he’s summoning his patience, but he does follow Sam.

“Hey, you guys got any news for me?” Sam asks them, ignoring Bucky’s disbelieving huff.

“You’re looking for the bad thing, right? The not-human, not-right thing?”

“Yeah, you know anything about it?”

“It’s eaten a lot of nests, bird man. Like a lot of ‘em. Eggs, babies, grown pigeons and all. It ate its way through every single pigeon nest over in Sunset Park on Fifth.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

The pigeon bobs its head in an almost meditative fashion. “Is what it is. We ain’t top o’ the food chain, we know how it goes. But this thing’s not right. Something unnatural about it, you know? If you and your mate there can catch it, a lotta birds will roost easy at night.”

“Uh, he’s not my mate.”

All the pigeons coo and chortle in surprise. One hops forward and coos in a comforting kind of way.

“You poor thing. You don’t got the plumage to keep him interested, yeah? That’s okay, there’s other ways! Like, if you build a great nest, or do a real nice dance. Just—look at that guy’s arm. Now, it’s no wing, but it’s way nicer than the arms the rest of you wingless types have! Shiny as the sun! Gotta be a lot of folks wanting a mate who’s shiny like that.”

The other pigeons murmur in agreement. “You gotta up your courting game if you want him as a mate!” says another pigeon.

“Uh—“

“Sam, do the pigeons know anything or what?”

“Thanks for the help guys,” Sam tells them.

“Get your mate, bird man! You can’t compete with that beautiful arm, even if it ain’t a wing, but try bringin’ him a pizza! Everyone loves pizza!”

“Who says I can’t compete?” demands Sam. “I’ve got wings, y’know! They’re not plumage, exactly, but they’re cool as hell.”

Sam then has the singular experience of being on the receiving end of a pitying look from a dozen pigeons.

“Sure you do, pal,” says one of the pigeons softly.

“I do! I just—don’t have them on right now, alright? But they are super impressive.”

“I’m sure shiny arm man thinks so,” soothes another pigeon. “But just in case, how’s about you bring your man some pizzas, huh? None of that two-dollar slice shit either, the fancy stuff. Really win him over.”

Bucky _does_ love pizza, Sam thinks. Surprisingly, he’s developed a love of all of the weirdo hipster, artisanal pizzas with strange toppings, though he likes the classic cheap New York slice the pigeons are maligning too. Maybe they _should_ go get some pizza, once they’re done here. Just because Sam’s hungry, of course. It’s not about _courting_ , or because Bucky likes fancy pizza.

“Yeah, thanks, okay, see you later!”

Sam grabs Bucky by his beautiful arm—his arm, dammit, his shiny, totally normal, intricately lovely vibranium arm—and walks them back to the bike.

“So? Did the pigeons have crucial intel?” asks Bucky with deceptive mildness, his arms crossed. “Or were you just bragging to them about your wings? Which you don’t have right now.”

“Shut up, it’s bird business, you wouldn’t understand,” Sam says, and when Bucky’s eyes narrow dangerously, he rushes to continue, “They told me there’s talk that our lizard-man monster straight up ate its way through an entire block’s pigeon nests. Also they suggested getting some pizza, but that wasn’t related to the case.”

“Really?” asks Bucky, and okay, the skepticism is honestly kind of insulting. “It’s eating the birds but not the people? What’s that about?”

“Let’s see if we can find out,” says Sam, and they head for Sunset Park.

Once they start walking, Bucky casts a sidelong glance at Sam, none of his prior annoyance on display now.

“You know, if you want pizza, you can just say so, you don’t have to use the pigeons as an excuse. There’s a great pizza joint out in Sunset Park, actually, we could go.”

“Ridiculous, overly complicated pizza, or good old-fashioned New York pizza?” asks Sam, because dammit, now he’s really craving pizza.

“Both,” says Bucky.

“Alright. Once we run down this latest lead,” he says, and is rewarded with a bright grin.

_Damn, the pigeons are onto something_ , Sam thinks, but that’s—well, that’s besides the point. This is going to be work pizza, not date pizza. Sam is just being a good partner and considering his partner’s food preferences.

* * *

Both Sam and the pigeons are vindicated when they do in fact find evidence of an unfortunate murder spree among the avian population of Sunset Park.

“Huh,” says Bucky with a frown, as he surveys the bloodied feathers that are all that’s left of what had once been a pigeon nest tucked away under a fire escape.

“See?” says Sam. “The pigeons were right.”

Bucky just hums, and scopes out the street. “There are four security cameras on this block, and another two the next block over. Maybe one of them got some footage.”

And so they get their next break in the case: it’s only a couple steps up from the infamously grainy photo of Bigfoot, but it is a photo of something bipedal but decidedly inhuman. Even without enough resolution for any real detail, the thing’s long, pointed tail is plainly visible.

“Holy shit. We really are dealing with a big lizard,” says Bucky as they review the footage on their phones.

They’re in the fancy pizza joint now, tucked away on the dining patio at a table for two, for what Sam’s happy to consider a working dinner. The pizza is in fact excellent; Sam’s classic pepperoni is exactly the right amount of greasy, and even Bucky’s ridiculous full pie loaded down with all manner of fancy mushrooms and cheeses smells amazing.

“A lizard that’s at least a little human,” notes Sam, then taps on the lizard-human hybrid’s totally normal hoodie and jeans. If not for the tail sticking out of the jeans, and the abnormal shape of the head under the hoodie’s hood, it would pass for a down-on-his-luck human man. “It’s—he’s?—wearing clothes, and he’s clearly got the capacity to understand that he has to try to stay hidden.”

“He’s come out of the sewers and waterways too, he’s traveling on the actual streets,” adds Bucky. “What I still don’t get is: he ate the birds. But he didn’t eat the people. So why kill the people at all? Were they targeted for something, or was it just opportunistic?”

“Maybe he’s human enough to consider eating people cannibalism?” suggests Sam, then he makes a face at the now less appetizing pizza in front of him and shrugs. “I don’t know, man, I think we should trace this lizard dude’s path through the city as best we can, see if we can’t run him to ground. And we still need more intel on the victims. If there’s a pattern, if there’s any motive for killing them, we gotta figure it out before there’s another killing.”

A waiter comes by with a smile to refill their water. “Would you gentlemen like some dessert tonight? We make our own tiramisu!”

Sam wants to say no, but then a pigeon flaps over, pecking idly at the crumbs on the ground. “Say yes! You gotta court him properly, get him the best food! Get that cake, bird-man! You want a mate, don’t you?”

“This is a work dinner,” Sam tells both the pigeon and the waiter, though he makes sure to look at the waiter when he says it. Bucky’s eyebrows go up, then his eyes narrow.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t treat yourself!” says the waiter, not missing a beat.

“Get him the cake, bird-man! Get him the cake! Then give me some of it too! Cake cake cake—”

“Yeah, okay,” says Sam, mostly just to get the damn pigeon to shut up. “Let’s get some tiramisu.”

“To share?” asks the waiter. “Or will you both want a slice?”

Who the hell shares dessert at a work dinner? Maybe you can manage it at a bigger restaurant, but the table here is tiny. If they share dessert, they’ll end up leaning close enough that their foreheads will almost touch, and then he’ll have to look at Bucky’s mouth while he eats the probably delicious dessert and licks his lips—

“We’ll share,” says Bucky, those lips lifting up just slightly in a smirk, at the same time as Sam says, “We’ll get two slices to go.”

The waiter blinks at them. “Maybe you need a little more time to decide?” he says diplomatically, but Bucky just sits back in his chair, his foot brushing against Sam’s. There’s something too close to triumph in his loose posture and the tilt of his lips.

“Sam’s right, let’s get them to go,” he says.

“Noooooooo!” says the pigeon. Sam ignores it.

* * *

Back at the Tower, they set FRIDAY to the task of combing through all the security camera footage they can get their hands on, and their investigation settles into a rhythm as they identify and map more and more of the lizard-man’s movements, narrowing his territory down to a wide swathe of Brooklyn with occasional forays into Queens. After a full week of investigation, Sam and Bucky are ready to conclude that there’s no pattern to the victims, that they must have been the lizard-man’s opportunistic or impulsive kills, just four people in the wrong place at the wrong time. So the Avengers draw up a patrol roster, and Sam gives a press conference about the investigation’s progress, telling people in the area to be on the lookout for a bipedal reptilian that’s about five and a half feet tall.

“Are you saying there’s a lizard-man monster on the loose in Brooklyn?” asks a reporter, as if Sam hasn’t gone to some effort to avoid having to say the words _lizard-man monster_ on live television, goddammit.

“That’s certainly an avenue we’re investigating,” says Sam. “If anyone has any information on this suspect, or if anyone spots him, please call the Avengers’ tip line immediately. Do not engage the suspect on your own, he is dangerous. Okay, next question.”

After the press conference, they catch a break: someone calls into the tip line on Saturday afternoon, saying they’re pretty sure they spotted the lizard-man monster skulking around the Gowanus Canal. The tipster even sent a grainy video taken from a thankfully safe distance, and the hooded figure prowling along the canal does seem to have a distinctly reptilian kind of lope before it dives into the water, which no sane human would do, on account of how the Gowanus Canal is basically a biohazard. Honestly, Sam won’t be surprised if it turns out their lizard-man is some poor unfortunate soul who fell in and got turned into a mutant by the Gowanus’ foulness.

Sam calls Bucky, and nearly pulls the phone away from his ear when Bucky picks up and loud music comes down the line. Damn, is Bucky out clubbing? On a Saturday afternoon? Sudden jealousy grips Sam as he surveys his own sad sack Saturday plans of too much takeout and a Netflix binge, and compares it to the sudden mental image of Bucky, dancing in a crowd of too-attractive people.

“Hey Sam, gimme a second,” says Bucky, slightly breathless, and after a few seconds of rustling and shuffling, the music begins to sound more distant, replaced with the sounds of people talking and laughing. “Alright, what’s up?”

“You in Brooklyn?” Sam asks.

“No, I’m in Manhattan, Central Park, why?”

“Shit. We got a lead on our lizard-man, someone spotted him over by the Gowanus again. He’s in the water probably, so who knows where he’s ended up, but I have the police setting up a perimeter, and I was hoping a fresher trail will help us catch the guy. Uh, if you’re, you know, busy, I can call Parker in on this, I know you’re not on call today—”

“No, no, I’ll come with you. Just—I’ll have to swing by the Tower for my gear and I took the train—”

Bucky could probably just take a Lyft to the Tower, but then Sam wouldn’t have a chance to see just what the hell he’s doing that involves all that music on this fine Saturday afternoon.

“I’ll come pick you up, you’re on my way if you’re in Central Park, and I need to swing by the Tower anyway,” says Sam.

“Yeah, alright, thanks. I’m by the Harlem Meer.”

“Then you’re definitely on my way. Be there in a few.”

* * *

Sam’s too busy suiting up and heading out to spare too much thought for just what Bucky’s doing in Central Park that involves music and the sound of a crowd—a picnic? Or maybe it’s the boring answer that Bucky’s just out for a run—but when he arrives at the coordinates Bucky had sent him, he realizes: it’s the festival. The annual Harlem Meer Performance Festival, when there are free concerts at the Park—or no, it’s not only a concert, it’s also a dance. And Bucky is here because he’s dancing. Not hot and sweaty nightclub-style grinding, but proper dancing with a partner: swing dancing actually, judging by the bold and brassy music. Bucky’s partner is a pretty brunette white woman in a bright green dress, and Bucky himself is in blue, and they’re spinning and rock stepping with apparent abandon.

For a moment, it’s like Sam’s looking into the past, at a Bucky Barnes who’s never known war. But no, this is the only Bucky Sam’s ever known: the Bucky who has a gleaming gold and vibranium arm, whose brightest smiles are usually tempered with some sorrow, whose graceful motion lends itself as equally to violence as it does to beauty.

“Who’re you looking to impress?” someone asks from beside Sam, and he startles, looking around for them, only to see no one standing close enough. That is, until he looks down and sees a duck. “Lady in the grass dress? Or shiny arm man? Because whew, you got your work cut out for you either way. They got moves.”

“I—what?” says Sam, as Bucky fully tosses the woman into the air, and catches her easily. Damn, yeah, they do have moves. “I’m just here to pick up shiny arm man—” Dammit, why do all the birds call Bucky that? Is it really his most distinguishing feature? “Bucky, I mean—”

“Oh, yeah, of course you got your eye on shiny arm man. You gotta impress with the dance, right? Court him properly and all. I’d move in now if I were you.”

Court? Sam’s not _courting_ Bucky. Why are birds so damn obsessed with courting?

A swan waddles up to join the duck in judging Sam’s life choices. “Now now, choosing a mate is a momentous thing, it demands consideration. This will be your partner for life!”

Bucky and his dance partner skillfully execute a particularly fancy-looking twirl, and they grin at each other, clearly having a blast. Then Sam takes in what the swan just said.

“Uh, that’s not really—I’m not looking for a mate for life, we’re just partners—“

“Oh, partnership is important in a mate! It isn’t _all_ about mating, after all!” says the swan, chortling, somehow sounding exactly like some busybody old lady.

“It’s mostly about mating though,” says the duck. “And if you wanna do that, you gotta get a move on. Seems like plenty of other folks want to move in on your man.”

The duck’s not wrong, maybe, because there are a lot of admiring eyes on Bucky and his dance partner. Of course there are, they’re great dancers, it has nothing to do with _courting_ or mating. Sam remembers why he’s here in the first place.

“Yo, Barnes!” Sam calls out and waves, and Bucky’s head turns in his direction.

After nodding at Sam in a _yeah, I’m coming_ kind of way, he leans down towards the woman he’s dancing with, clearly making his apologies for his exit, and she smiles up at him, goes on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. Even from this distance, Sam can see Bucky blush, and he doesn’t even know who the automatic thought of _how dare you_ is directed at, but well, that is undeniably his first thought.

Is Bucky on a _date_? Is Bucky dating now? And if so, why the hell hadn’t Sam heard anything about it? They’re partners, aren’t they? Partners talk about that kind of shit. They’d had that whole conversation about how Bucky should text bee lady! Sam deserves to be kept up to date.

Before he can follow that particular train of thought further, Bucky jogs over to him, and the train derails entirely, because _what is Bucky wearing_.

“Sorry, didn’t want to leave her hanging mid-song. We good to go?”

Sam jerks his eyes up from the frankly excessive bare chest action happening in front of him. Bucky’s wearing a navy blue, short-sleeved button-up, and not only is the fabric downright straining over his biceps, but he’s also got about two too many buttons undone, and it’s—well, it’s inappropriate is what it is. What with the triangle of smooth, tan skin on display and the slight sheen of sweat and—

“Yeah, I parked over—good god, man, you wanna button up?”

“Huh?” says Bucky, genuine confusion in the furrow of his brow before he glances down at himself and shrugs. “Oh. What, I’m hot!”

“Yeah you are,” Sam says, because his mouth has entirely failed to consult his brain. The duck at his feet cackles, and Sam decides it’s time to beat a hasty retreat and also to pretend like he did not just say that. “Okay, let’s get going!” he says and heads back to the car.

* * *

It’s totally normal and an expression of objective fact to think Bucky’s hot, right? He’s an attractive man, is all, what with the whole face situation and the supersoldier muscles and great hair. It doesn’t have to be a thing. Also Sam hasn’t gotten laid in—he starts that mental math and then immediately gives up on it for maintenance of personal morale reasons. The point is, Sam thinks Bucky’s hot because it is an objective fact. It has nothing to do with wanting to court him. Or actually courting him. There’s definitely no courting going on, is the thing. Birds just don’t understand people, is all.

That’s what Sam tells himself on the drive out to Brooklyn anyway.

He can’t help it though, he has to know: “Were you on a date just now? At the park?”

“A date? Uh, no, I just heard about a swing dancing event, wanted to check it out. I kinda missed it. Dancing, I mean. Maya was—she was real nice and all, and a hell of a dancer, but she was just my dance partner for the afternoon.”

“You probably could’ve asked her out though,” Sam says, keeping his eyes on the road. “Her or bee lady from a few weeks back. Your tragic assassin past doesn’t make you undateable, you know.”

Bucky’s a goddamn catch, and not just looks-wise, and Sam’s honestly baffled that he seemingly doesn’t notice people throwing themselves at him.

“Maybe,” says Bucky, sounding skeptical. “I’m waiting for the right person, I guess. And I don’t know, I don’t think I can do casual anymore. I can’t just—meet someone and then go out with them, that’s—that’s not happening. Not with—you know.”

Bucky’s voice is tense, tense enough that Sam’s starting to regret bringing this up. And yeah, Sam does know. It’s not really a surprise that Bucky doesn’t find it easy to trust people.

“Yeah,” Sam says, even and gentle. “I know. But you can do it, going out to events like that dance is a good start. You’ll get to know someone well enough before you know it.”

“Sure,” says Bucky softly, and when Sam glances over at him, he’s surprised to see a wry and privately amused smile making his lips curve upward and his eyes crinkle. “I’m working on it.”

* * *

When they get to Brooklyn, the police inform them that no lizard-man monsters have been caught in their perimeter, but on the bright side, no new victims have been found either. FRIDAY’s sent them some possibilities for the lizard-man’s path through the city based on the initial tip and a trawl of available surveillance footage, so they follow the lizard-man’s seemingly aimless path through Red Hook and Carroll Gardens as far as they can until the trail goes cold in Cobble Hill.

“Do you think our suspect is a werelizard?” muses Sam. “Maybe he can turn back into a normal human and that’s why we keep losing his trail. He’s sure as hell not just sticking to the sewers anymore.”

“Hmm, maybe,” says Bucky. “Or maybe he’s some kind of mutant the Gowanus spat out.”

“Oh, come on,” scoffs Sam, and Bucky glares at him. “There’s no way even the nasty-ass Gowanus can just spontaneously spit out a mutant lizard-man. Someone getting bitten by some kinda Gowanus mutant lizard, sure, or hell, maybe someone fell into some of that disgusting black mayonnaise shit at the bottom.”

Although, now that Sam thinks of it, weirder shit has happened than the Gowanus birthing a murderous lizard-man.

“You don’t know what the Gowanus is capable of! The water was rank when I was a kid and it’s gotten _worse._ And back in my day, everyone always said the mob used the Gowanus to dump bodies. Maybe one of ‘em turned into something like our lizard-man. Or our lizard-man’s grandpa or whatever.”

To Sam’s delight, the longer they’re in Brooklyn, the more pronounced Bucky’s accent gets, and Sam’s about to tease him about his old-timey Brooklyn stories when they get a call from dispatch: they’ve just received a 911 call about someone falling into the Gowanus over by the Expressway. So Sam and Bucky book it back there, hoping they’re not about to find another victim.

They don’t, thankfully. Instead, they find a small knot of onlookers and a couple police officers, along with a few curious seagulls.

The onlookers have video of a figure that looks a lot like the lizard-man diving into the canal, which they’re happy to share with Sam, Bucky, and the police.

One of the officers mutters, “That’s just not right,” as the video shows the splash of the filmy, gray-green colored waters closing over the lizard-man’s still hooded head, and Sam has to agree. No standard human in their right mind would jump into the Gowanus. Hell, Bucky’s a super soldier and he’s looking a little green at the sight.

“You think he swims out to harbor, or into the sewers?” asks Bucky.

One of the seagulls flaps up onto a nearby light pole. “Harbor!” it calls. “Not that anyone listens to me, but it headed for the harbor.”

“Harbor,” Sam says, and when Bucky looks at him, he glances meaningfully up at the seagull.

“You just wanna avoid the sewers,” says Bucky.

“What, you don’t?” Sam asks, before continuing, “And anyway, harbor’s where he might run into people.”

A small squabble of seagulls descends, and one of them screeches, “Hey, it’s the bird-man! If you’re still looking for lizard-man, we just spotted it out in the water near Red Hook so we cleared out.”

“It’s probably eating the fishes, but we’re not taking any risks! Not after what happened to the pigeons!”

“Thanks guys,” Sam tells the seagulls. “Red Hook. We gotta check out the waters around Red Hook.”

* * *

They get to Red Hook just in time for a whole flotilla of sea gulls to descend on Sam, all of them screeching the same warning: “Lizard-man is heading for the ferry!”

Shit. From this dock, at this time of day, the ferry’s probably headed for Governor’s Island, and on a nice late summer weekend like this, with sunny skies and mild weather, there’s bound to be some kind of event or concert, which means a lot of civilians milling around and a potential for a widespread panic. Sam relays the warning to Bucky, who groans.

“You know, the Avengers have got air and land covered powers-wise, but I’m really feeling our lack of someone with water powers right about now,” he says, before activating his comms. “FRIDAY, can we get some backup from the Coast Guard?”

“You can find a boat to commandeer or something, I’m flying out there before lizard-man hitches a ride on that ferry to Governor’s Island,” Sam tells Bucky, and takes to the air, already tuning out Bucky’s protests.

Sam sends Redwing out too, in the hope that Redwing’s scanners will be able to spot the lizard-man in the water. To Sam’s surprise and relief, a couple of gulls join him in the air, and it’s one of them who spots the lizard-man first. The lizard-man is in fact headed straight for the ferry, and damn, he is fast.

“I’ve got eyes on our guy,” Sam says over comms. “You found a boat yet?”

Bucky’s voice is breathless and annoyed when he answers, “Yeah, but the Coast Guard is still ten minutes out.”

“Okay, well, get your ass over here, I’m gonna need somewhere to drop this guy and get him into custody.”

Belatedly, Sam wonders if boats are the one kind of vehicle Bucky doesn’t know how to operate, but whatever, Bucky can probably figure it out. Sam’s got enough on his hands apprehending a lizard-man.

Sam has watched enough birds hunt for fish in the water that he knows how it’s done, even if he’s lacking the advantage of talons. What he’s lacking in claws or talons though, he makes up for with tasers, so long as he times it right. He puts on a burst of speed with the EXO jetpack, then he tucks his wings back and dives. He gets a scant couple of seconds to enjoy the rush of a fast dive, before it’s action time. It’s tricky timing to aim, shoot, and then grab the lizard-man, but Sam manages it with help from Redwing’s HUD. Keeping hold of the thrashing lizard-man after he’s scooped him up is another matter.

“Barnes, where are you?” Sam shouts, already struggling to hang onto what’s gotta be at least 175 pounds of twitching, wet lizard-man.

“Four o’clock, a few hundred meters from you!”

Sam wheels around with difficulty, and flies over to the boat Bucky’s managed to commandeer: a flashy but dinky little cabin cruiser that looks like it’s barely gonna have room for all three of them at once. Well, they’re just gonna have to hope it won’t capsize. Sam dumps the lizard-man on the deck first, then, once he’s sure the damn boat won’t start sinking, he touches down on deck.

“You couldn’t have gotten a bigger boat?” Sam asks, pulling out some restraints for the lizard-man, and Bucky turns from the tiller to glare at him.

“I was going for speed, not size!” he retorts, and tries to get a proper look at the lizard-man’s face as he clamps some extra-strength restraints on the lizard-man’s wrists.

Sam gets the vague impression of a brownish-green head and face that look a lot like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park, only lumpier and bigger, when the lizard-man’s furious slit-pupiled eyes snap open. Sam has just enough time to think _well he sure looks angry_ before a hissing noise activates some deep-seated instinct in Sam that makes him throw himself backward. Which, on a boat this small, means he stumbles and falls over the side and right into the damn water.

Now, even with every bit of Stark’s effort to make the EXO jetpack and wings as light as possible, they’re pretty heavy, plus Sam’s carrying the shield too, which means he sinks like a damn stone the moment he hits the water. He knows better than to struggle or thrash, or engage the jetpack; he just has to engage his suit’s emergency lifejacket...there. He fumbles for the lifejacket release, which is feeling way too damn fiddly now that Sam’s actively sinking to the bottom of the New York Harbor while rapidly running out of air. When he finally gets it, the lifejacket activates with a muted _whoomp_ and he begins to rocket up to the surface.

When he surfaces, he gasps for much-needed air and tries to reorient himself while he gets into the HELP position. He’s still near the boat, which is good, but judging by the sounds coming from it, Bucky’s currently engaged in a serious fight with the lizard-man. He hears that alarming hissing noise again, followed by—is that sizzling?—and then Bucky curses; there’s the slap and thump of blows landing, before Sam’s hit with a wave of water that makes him splutter, and when it clears, Bucky’s floating right next to him in the water.

“Sam! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, where’s the lizard-man? He’s getting away! The ferry—”

“Coast Guard’s here, they’ve got the ferry covered,” Bucky says, then he grabs Sam’s lifejacket and begins tugging him back toward the boat.

“This is undignified. We are superheroes, Bucky! And we just got dunked into the damn harbor by some kinda mutant lizard.”

“Look on the bright side: at least we didn’t fall into the Gowanus! Or the sewer!” says Bucky, before he hauls himself up into the boat with one easy and graceful movement. Sam has half a second to take in the sight of Bucky’s ass, the soaked fabric of his pants clinging to its curves in a way that leaves little to the imagination, and then Bucky reaches down to heave Sam out of the water too, before staggering over to the tiller, stripping off his uniform jacket on the way. Which, is that really necessary? Really? Because it only puts more wet fabric clinging to defined muscles on display, and honestly, it’s not fair that Bucky doesn’t look nearly as bedraggled as he ought to after his unplanned swim.

A few seagulls are still circling overhead, and Sam distinctly hears one of them say, “Yikes,” and the rest of the seagulls take up the chorus.

He glares up at them as he tries to free himself from his lifejacket. “Hey, a little help here? Where’d the lizard-man go?”

“Oh, lizard-man has gone fish-man, can’t see him no more.”

Sam toggles Redwing’s display on again and checks for himself, but the seagull is right: either the lizard-man has dived deep enough into the harbor to be out of Redwing’s range or he’s escaped.

“Do we still have visual on our lizard guy?” Bucky asks.

“No we do not. Goddammit. How did he get the drop on you anyway?”

Bucky glances back at Sam, aggrieved. “By spitting out some kind of acid venom, that’s how. I was trying to avoid getting a face full of the stuff. It got on my damn uniform and started eating through it, and I think there’s still some on my prosthetic.”

“Great. So now we know we’re dealing with some kinda amphibious venom-spitting lizard-man.”

“Told you we need someone with water powers on the team.”

* * *

Back at the Red Hook ferry dock, they liaise with the Coast Guard and NYPD about increased patrols in that area of the harbor while they try to dry off and clean up.

Sam’s wings can take a dip in the water, no problem, and he’s got them spread out to dry properly. Bucky’s prosthetic needs some more immediate attention, after it got hit with some of the lizard-man’s venom or whatever it was. The brief swim in the harbor didn’t wash it all off, but thankfully the vibranium is holding up to whatever toxic gunk is in the lizard-man’s mutant loogie. It’s still enough of a biohazard that Bucky understandably wants it cleaned off his arm ASAP, and Sam is a good and caring partner, so he offers to help Bucky.

They scrounge supplies from Coast Guard EMTs and their own emergency kits, and commandeer the little cabin cruiser for just a little longer as they clean up. Sam’s really second guessing their choice of location right about now though, because the damn seagulls are still hanging around to provide color commentary.

“Some nice preening action there, for a human.”

“He’s gotta make up for that whole embarrassing falling into the water situation. Not the kinda graceful moves that’ll get you your mate, bird man!”

“Hey, you need some courting tips? Preening’s a good start, but you gotta do more than that!”

Sam grits his teeth and ignores the seagulls. He does not need courting tips, because this is not about courting. Also what the fuck, why are seagulls so damn nosy. If Sam was courting Bucky, it wouldn’t be any of the damn birds’ business. Anyway, Sam has better game than birds, come on.

“I can do this myself,” says Bucky quietly, and Sam almost jumps. When he looks up from checking the intricate plates of Bucky’s vibranium wrist for any gunk or debris, Bucky’s eyes are on him, big and shockingly silvery in the bright sunlight, and almost apprehensive. “If you—I don’t know, need to fix your wings or anything.”

“Nah, my wings just need to dry off. Making sure your arm’s alright is more important anyway. Nothing hurts, right?”

“No, nothing hurts. Um, thanks.”

Bucky’s prosthetic really is a work of art, and Sam thinks this new vibranium one made by Shuri suits Bucky much better than the shiny and brutal arm HYDRA had grafted onto him. Sam’s sure this new prosthetic can take a beating—Shuri wouldn’t give Bucky anything less than nigh-indestructible—but he’s still careful as he inspects each vibranium plate and golden seam for damage or lingering venom. As he works, the plates shiver and recalibrate with a soft and almost soothing hum.

“Sorry, is this okay?” Sam asks, and Bucky nods, lets out a deliberate kind of exhale that reminds Sam they’re sitting very close together, the slight sway of the boat occasionally making them lean even closer.

“Yeah, just—feels a little weird sometimes is all. Sensitive.”

Sam continues cleaning more gently. There’s something meditative about carefully wiping down the gleaming seams of Bucky’s vibranium arm, and it lets Sam’s brain mull over the last couple days of the investigation while his hands work.

“Why did the lizard-man go for the ferry? Why Governor’s Island? The lizard-man was out and about all day, it seems like, but he didn’t go after anyone else, just roamed around Brooklyn not caring if anyone else spotted him. So what changed?” Sam wonders.

“Maybe something about the previous victims just—set him off. Something we haven’t found or considered on account of how we’re not mutant lizards that crawled out of the Gowanus.”

“Oh, someone’s cranky, I see,” teases Sam, and Bucky scowls. Sam just grins and keeps cleaning. “And yeah, maybe. Or maybe he really is some kinda were-lizard.”

“If he turned back into a regular human, we definitely would’ve noticed.”

“No, I mean, like, he’s not in control of himself. Like a werewolf during the full moon.”

“So sometimes he’s not all human, and sometimes he is,” says Bucky slowly, and when Sam looks up at him, he sees Bucky’s sea-gray eyes staring out over the water, unfocused, like he’s chasing a thought in his own head. Bucky’s arm is clear of any gunk or water now, but Sam keeps wiping the cloth gently over the vibranium plates so as not to distract Bucky.

“He’s hunting,” says Bucky eventually. “The other times, the other victims, I don’t know what that was, maybe he really was just out of control, but today, he was hunting. He stayed on the streets most of the time, not in the Gowanus or in the sewers. He’s looking for someone, or something.”

Sam and Bucky’s eyes meet, and they both grin, excited by their little mutual epiphany.

“Alright,” says Sam with satisfaction. “So let’s see if we can’t get our hands on a list of people who were on the ferry to Governor’s Island just now, maybe even the whole day’s passengers.”

Bucky nods. “There are some security cameras on the ferry dock, FRIDAY can probably run some facial recognition.”

“And,” says Sam, with a sudden flash of intuition, “We should check for missing persons, in case this really is some kinda were-lizard or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation. Brooklyn first, then the other boroughs, see if anyone could be missing our lizard-man from his more human days.”

* * *

Back at the Tower, Sam and Bucky get the ball rolling on their new leads once they’ve washed the worst of the harbor stink off. Sam gives FRIDAY the parameters for some searches, and meanwhile he intends to look into as many of the ferry passengers as he can for potential links to the lizard-man, plus he wants to stick around in case there’s another sighting.

“Hey, you don’t have to stick around too, I’ve got this. If you have plans, or if you just wanna enjoy what’s left of your weekend, you can go.“

Bucky just stares at him in disbelief, and maybe even a little offense. “I’m not gonna leave and make you do all the work on your own.”

Sam almost wants to tell him that there’s no grade here, this isn’t an actual group project; Bucky can slack off, and Sam can handle the investigation for now. But it’s not like Sam _wants_ to do this alone.

“I’m probably just gonna be waiting on data most of the time, it’s not a big deal. And I feel kinda bad about ruining your weekend. Seriously, I’ve got this, you can go. You’ll owe me one, alright?”

“Who says it’s ruined?” says Bucky with a shrug. “Listen, you’re settling in for a long night here, right?” Sam nods. “So I’ll go get us some dinner, then we can get to work. Any requests?”

“Just no seafood,” says Sam, and Bucky grins.

“No chicken either, I’m guessing? On account of your deep connection to your avian friends?” he asks, too innocent by far to be sincere about it, and he’s gone before Sam can even pick up a pen to throw at him in retaliation.

“You’re not funny!” Sam calls after him, and Bucky’s answering laugh is brighter than a beam of sunshine.

* * *

Bucky returns about forty minutes later, his arms loaded down with takeout bags, which is good, because Sam is starving. He sniffs hopefully.

“Falafel?” he asks, and Bucky nods.

“Yeah, and lamb shwarma.”

“Did you get the extra—“

“Hummus and tzatziki? Yeah, of course, and no onions in your falafel wrap either.”

Damn, Sam hadn’t realized Bucky’s been paying such close attention to his food preferences.

“Thanks, man, this is perfect,” he says.

Bucky gives him one of his sweeter smiles as he unpacks the food and sets it out on the conference room table that Sam’s colonized for the night’s investigation.

Once they’ve portioned out the food between them, and once Sam has scarfed down enough falafel to sate the worst of his hunger, Sam tells Bucky about the theory that’s been slowly percolating in his mind.

"Alright, so hear me out. Presuming our lizard-man is _not_ a were-lizard who got bit by some horrifying mutant lizard that slithered out of the polluted mess that is the Gowanus—“

Bucky raises his eyebrows and swallows his mouthful of tabbouleh.

"I'm gonna remind you that one of our own teammates is Spiderman, who actually, literally got bit by a radioactive spider.”

“Yeah, no, are we sure he isn’t just bullshitting us about that? Like, maybe it’s just an excuse for his spider-based branding.”

“That doesn’t seem likely. Why would a superhero lie about something like that?” asks Bucky, all bland and earnest innocence.

Goddammit. Sam narrows his eyes at Bucky and pointedly ignores this slight against Sam’s entire Falcon identity and his totally real ability to talk to birds.

“Anyway, if it's not a lizard bite situation, or an alien situation—“

“That’s a big if. This could still be an alien lizard-man situation.”

Bucky’s not wrong; given their recent experiences, Occam’s razor would actually suggest that their suspect is an alien who’s ended up here accidentally, either via some portal or space travel, and who may well just be doing murders on accident too. But Sam’s gut tells him otherwise.

“My bet is that someone made lizard-man the way he is. Because if someone turned you into a horrifying lizard-human hybrid, you’d be pretty confused, right? Maybe not in your right mind, maybe violent. And once you figured out what’s going on, at least a little, who would you be looking for? The person who did it to you. I know if I'd been on my own when Amora turned me into a bird, that's what I'd have done."

Bucky tilts his head and looks right at Sam. “You wouldn't have gone around killing people while you were at it though. It’s not like you went around divebombing and pecking at everyone while you were a falcon.”

“Not right then, no, but if I’d gotten more confused, or thought I was in danger…”

“Maybe,” allows Bucky, before he looks down, fiddling with his fork and pushing around the few grains of couscous left on his plate. “Me, I tried ignoring it. And when I couldn’t do that, I just tried to stay safe. So why wouldn’t our lizard guy do that?”

Sam’s heart undergoes the decidedly uncomfortable experience of simultaneously twisting with sympathetic pain and abruptly expanding with aching affection. Bucky really doesn’t know how remarkable he is, does he. _Just tried to stay safe,_ Sam’s ass. Like it wasn’t an astonishing display of strength and willpower to rebuild and recover himself without giving in to anger, hatred, and despair. It’s not something most people could manage.

“Lizard guy might want to go back to normal,” says Sam, gently, because he can guess at the shape of this particular blind spot of Bucky’s.

Bucky’s mouth lifts into a lopsided, bitter smile, and he doesn’t need to say anything as his eyes meet Sam’s. Sam knows what he’s thinking, no superpowers necessary: that it’s not possible. That once changed, there can be no complete return. Hell, even Sam knows the truth of that now; he’d spent an hour or so as an actual falcon, and now he can talk to birds. Sam knocks a knee against Bucky’s, a wordless _yeah, I know_. The silence is surprisingly easy, even as it’s heavy. That’s alright, thinks Sam. The two of them can carry it together.

Bucky presses his own knee against Sam’s, and his smile turns sweet and warm, before he clears his throat.

“Anyway, lotta speculation there,” says Bucky, raising an eyebrow. “FRIDAY, we got any data to back up that scenario?”

“I have compiled a list of missing persons in the tristate area.”

“Limit that to New York, and missing persons from the last couple of months,” says Sam.

“Our guy might not be listed as missing,” notes Bucky. “Especially after the Blip. Plenty of folks just slipped through the cracks after that, especially if they didn’t have much of a life to come back to.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Sam says with a grimace. “Well, alright, time to dig in, see what we can find.”

* * *

They work until the small hours of the morning, and they end up with a short list of possible suspects before they turn in for the night, staying in their quarters in the Tower. Sam’s up again a few hours later, pricked by a sense of urgency—surely their lizard-man is going to strike again soon—so he’s the first back in the conference room.

Because he’s a good partner—and some small part of what’s left of his inner falcon says because he can successfully court a partner, thank you very much—he brings breakfast with him, and he has a supersoldier-worthy spread ready by the time Bucky comes down: four breakfast sandwiches from Sam and Bucky’s favorite bodega in Midtown, an enormous iced mocha for Sam and an equally enormous iced coffee with far too much sugar in it for Bucky, and two danishes that Bucky will insist he doesn’t want but that he’s definitely going to eat.

Maybe better than the breakfast spread though is that Sam has some likely suspects to present. They’ll need to do some legwork to follow up on them, but it’s better than waiting for another body to turn up, or hoping for a lizard-man sighting. Sam’s just about give Bucky a wake-up call via text when Bucky hurries into the conference room with bright eyes and obnoxiously, improbably perfect bedhead.

“I had an idea while I was in the shower! I remembered what you said about how maybe someone made our lizard-guy the way he is, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s evil scientists. So I looked up New York-based scientists—biologists, medical doctors, geneticists, zoologists—and I’ve got a list of people who might be able to, you know, turn someone into a were-lizard. FRIDAY, can you put up my list of maybe mad scientists, please?”

Sam’s not often on the receiving end of quite this much of Bucky’s earnest enthusiasm; in the field and on the job, Bucky is usually pretty reserved. So it takes him a moment to respond with anything more than an automatic smile.

“That’s a really great idea, Bucky. I’ve got a list of missing people who are high up on my list of suspects too, maybe if we cross reference them, we’ll get lucky and find a link?“

“That’s what I was thinking,” says Bucky, then he notices the breakfast spread and he beams. Sam was up at just past dawn this morning, and this right here is a lot like seeing that rosy warmth spreading across the skyline. “Oh hey, you got us breakfast! And danishes, you didn’t have to. Thanks, Sam.”

* * *

They go through Bucky’s list of potential mad scientists, and Sam’s list of missing persons, one by one, until they hit jackpot. Dr. Curtis Connors, geneticist, spent Saturday on Governor’s Island with his wife and son, according to his wife’s Instagram. And not only is Dr. Connors a geneticist, he’s a geneticist whose research focuses on reptiles, and their ability to regrow limbs.

Bucky is extremely smug about it.

“I know you don’t think much of mad scientist types, but I gotta point out, we may have the wrong end of the stick here. Our were-lizard may be looking for Connors not because he turned him into a lizard-man, but because he’s trying to find someone who can fix it.”

“I’m obliged to point out, Mr. Wilson, that one of your missing persons, Rick Jacobs, was one of Dr. Connors’ lab assistants. He went missing four months ago,” says FRIDAY.

“Well, isn’t that interesting. Did the cops talk to Connors?” Sam asks, already swiping through files on the fancy holographic data table to pull up the police reports.

“To establish a timeline of his movements, yes,” confirms FRIDAY.

And from there, they’re off to the races.

* * *

By afternoon, they’re reasonably confident that Jacobs is their lizard-man. What they don’t know is just what Connors’ role in all this is, which means it’s time to bring in the rest of the Avengers. The ones who are available, anyway. Wanda’s off doing some magic training with Dr. Strange, and Bruce is at a conference, so Sam’s got a roster of Scott, Hope, and Peter for this particular mission and/or investigation.

“Could just be a lab accident,” says Hope, a slightly bitter twist to her lips, and yeah, the Avengers and their families are no stranger to those. “Maybe Jacobs tried some extracurricular lizard-juice experiments on himself.”

“Could also be a lab accident Connors tried to cover up. Guessing it’s not good for his funding if someone turns into a lizard monster on his watch,” suggests Scott.

“At this point, I’m less concerned with motivation than I am with getting Jacobs in custody. We’ll figure out the rest from there,” says Sam.

“You want me and Scott to go talk to Connors? I think my dad might know him, I could work that connection.”

“Good idea, yeah. Parker—“

Peter brightens up like a goddamn light bulb, practically beaming out helpful earnestness. “I can go on patrol! Try to find Jacobs!”

“Uh uh, not when you’re buddy-less. I need you here going through every bit of Connors’ research you can get your hands on. See if you can’t figure out just how the hell Jacobs became a lizard monster.”

Peter’s briefly crestfallen, before he takes one look at the research and then there it is again, the human lightbulb of earnest helpfulness. Sam feels indescribably old just looking at him.

“On it, Cap!”

“Thanks, Peter. Me and Bucky will see if we can’t track down Jacobs in his old stomping grounds. If we don’t find Connors or Jacobs, we’ll meet back at the Tower at 8, alright? Everyone, check in via comms if you find anything.”

* * *

Jacobs’ Brooklyn apartment has long since been rented out to new tenants, but Sam and Bucky figure he might still have a home base in the area, or that if he’s really not quite in his right mind, that he’ll retreat to familiar ground, so they start there. They don’t find any obvious signs of Jacobs or the lizard-man in the area though: no suspicious sightings, no tips that Jacobs had been spotted.

Sam consults with the birds too, the pigeons and sparrows and starlings and crows, but they don’t have any answers for Sam either.

“Is this when we gotta go in the sewers?” asks Bucky, the set of his jaw grim.

The afternoon is growing longer, the light shifting from golden to orange, and as evening creeps closer, they’re no closer to finding Jacobs.

Sam really does not want to go in the sewers.

“Let’s try looking literally everywhere else first,” says Sam as his comms chirp.

“Hey, Cap,” comes Hope’s voice. “So Connors is definitely acting suspiciously—”

“On account of how according to his lab assistants, he didn’t show up for work on Friday, and he’s been acting erratically the last few weeks,” cuts in Scott. “Showing up late, snapping at people, not going to meetings or making deadlines.”

“He’s not at home with his family, and his home life isn’t going so hot either. His wife thinks he’s having an affair.”

“Hmm, on balance, is it better or worse if he’s doing evil science instead?” wonders Bucky, and Hope snorts.

“I don’t know, but the coworkers we talked to think he’s developed some kind of addiction. Anyway, we’re still trying to track him down.”

“Alright, keep us posted. We’re still working on finding Jacobs too.”

“You got it, Cap.”

“You think Connors knows Jacobs is after him?” asks Bucky. “Could explain his erratic behavior, and why he’s avoiding his family and coworkers. He may be trying to keep them safe.”

“Maybe it’s a whole Dr. Frankenstein situation, yeah. Alright, let’s keep looking for our lizard guy then. I was thinking, maybe we should try the subways, check the surveillance footage for the platforms—“ says Sam, and they brainstorm together as they head for the closest subway station.

* * *

They manage to check one subway stations before Sam gets a call from the NYPD’s Harbor Unit: there’s been another lizard-man sighting in the harbor, this time along the Rockaway Ferry route, heading north.

“We didn’t get the best look, so we’re not sure if he’s headed to shore or not, but we can have an NYPD boat meet you at the Brooklyn Army Terminal dock,” says the NYPD sergeant, and Sam agrees.

“Has he been in the water this whole time?” Sam asks Bucky, as they head for Sunset Park and the Army Terminal. “Are we sure he’s a lizard-man and not an, I don’t know, shark-man? Because he really seems to like the water.”

“No idea, but I’m not swimming after him. That is officially not part of my superhero skillset. Find someone with water powers. We’re sticking to the boat this time, Sam.”

Sam kind of wants to bask in this admission that Bucky isn’t good at something, but that impulse quickly fizzles out when his mind helpfully reminds him of the sight of Bucky swimming, perfectly competently no matter what he says about it not being in his superhero skillset, and that transitions to the memory of Bucky pushing himself out of the harbor and onto the boat, water streaming off of him as his uniform clung to his body, his pants outlining a trim but temptingly firm and tight ass—oh my god, _what is wrong with him_. Bucky is his _partner._ They are at _work_. With effort, Sam refocuses on the Bucky standing in front of him rather than the wet and tempting Bucky of his memory.

“Okay, well, we can try, but if we have to go after him, that might involve some swimming,” says Sam.

Bucky narrows his eyes. “I brought a harpoon.”

“What? _Where_?” demands Sam, because while Bucky can fit a truly astonishing amount of weaponry on his person, Sam doesn’t see where he could have possibly stowed a whole-ass _harpoon_. Is it in his _arm_?

“We are _staying_ in the _boat_ , Sam,” says Bucky, with grim resolve and also a slight hint of Ahab-style crazy eyes.

Well, alright then.

* * *

It doesn’t take them long to get to the Brooklyn Army Terminal, thankfully, and when they get there, Sam’s struck all over again by the strangeness of a New York that’s post-post-apocalypse.

Because the last time Sam had been in this neighborhood was in 2015, when the huge, complex warehouse space that was the Brooklyn Army Terminal had been finishing up renovations to house new businesses and manufacturing facilities, just another sign of gentrification. Sam’s pretty sure it had become hot real estate after the renovations were finished, but that’s not in evidence now.

Hell, now it’s like the renovations had never happened at all, and there are signs of disrepair and damage: broken windows that haven’t been replaced, soot marks from fires, and even a whole portion of one of the buildings blasted out and missing, like a tooth punched out of someone’s mouth. And that’s not even mentioning how empty the place is, with at most a third of the warehouses and facilities up and running. There are probably squatters in the rest. Of both the human and animal sort, Sam thinks, as he watches a flock of pigeons fly into the blasted portion of the building, their early evening chatter nothing more than a distant murmur from this far away.

A year of post-post-apocalypse recovery hasn’t yet made its mark on the Army Terminal, apparently.

“Guessing the Army doesn’t use this place anymore?” says Bucky.

Sam shakes his head. “Uh, not since like the 60s or 70s, no.”

“Huh,” says Bucky, and then Sam’s about to head for the ferry near the Terminal when Bucky stops him with a hand on his arm. “Wait, is that Jacobs?” Bucky asks, and nods his head towards a hooded figure making its way into the Terminal.

There’s something not quite human about his movements, an odd lope to his stride that doesn’t match up to the rhythm of the average person’s gait. Sam slips his goggles down over his eyes and engages the UV mode: just like the birds had said, Jacobs isn’t the right color once you look at him with the expanded UV spectrum, little flickers of strange color where his face and hands are just barely visible.

“Yeah, it’s him,” Sam says. “C’mon, if we hustle, we can tail him.”

They follow Jacobs in, maintaining enough distance that Sam’s pretty sure Jacobs won’t spot them. He’s moving fast anyway, only stopping occasionally, seemingly to sniff the air.

“You think he lives here?” Bucky asks in a barely audible murmur, and the thought has crossed Sam’s mind.

It seems likely enough: easy to squat here, and there’s fast access to the water, which seems to be one of the main ways Jacobs gets around when he’s in lizard form.

“Maybe,” says Sam, and they tail Jacobs further up and deeper in, until they reach one of the top floors.

They follow Jacobs down a long hallway, hanging back and ducking in and out of doorways to stay out of sight, and it’s not long before they spot Jacobs darting inside a room. Sam moves to follow him, but Bucky holds him back.

“Wait. Any idea what this part of the building is used for? Or was used for?”

“There’s not exactly an up to date directory, Bucky.”

Bucky gives him an unimpressed glance, before tapping at his comms. “I just think we should have an idea of what we’re getting ourselves into. FRIDAY, can you—“

But before Bucky can finish his request, they hear a series of thumps and clatters, and a terrible, inhuman sound that’s something between a roar and a shout, and then forget about gathering more intel, they’re running towards Jacobs.

Sam has enough presence of mind to go in shield first, and he gets the vague impression of a dilapidated lab space before a cloud of some kind of smoke or gas envelopes him. He tries to use the last clean breath he’s got to warn Bucky, to tell him to retreat, but even opening his mouth that much proves to be a bad idea. The smoke fills his airway, as clinging and cloying as incense. It doesn’t burn, at least, doesn’t hurt at all, and he doesn’t even feel breathless, so maybe it’ll be okay—he scarcely finishes the thought before his vision fills with bursts of darkness like reverse fireworks, and awareness leaves him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol sorry not sorry about that cliffhanger :D Don't worry though, I should have the final chapter for you by Monday night.


	4. Chapter 4

When Sam comes to, his return to consciousness is about as pleasant as a two-by-four to the head. He does a quick mental and physical status check: his breathing is fine, so whatever that gas had been, it didn’t damage his lungs or airway, and his head is pounding with the dull ache of something like a hangover, so that’s survivable. What’s concerning is the fact that he’s tied up. And judging by the strained ache in his shoulders, he’s been tied up for at least an hour, maybe more. He tests his bonds carefully, and okay, nope, no give there: his arms are tied behind him with something he can’t identify, and his legs aren’t free either, with his ankles tied to chair legs.

“Sam. Sam, you awake? C’mon Sam, wake up.”

Sam opens his eyes, and on the upside, Bucky’s in his line of sight, just a few feet away. On the downside, he’s also tied up, or maybe more accurately, clamped up, with some kind of heavy-duty restraints pinning his limbs to one of the room’s columns.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m up, I’m fine. Are you okay?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” says Bucky.

Sam gives him a thorough once-over, just to be sure this isn’t one of those times Bucky says _I’m fine_ while actively bleeding out, but Bucky does seem okay. Pissed off, sure, but okay and not freaking out. Still, their current situation is less than ideal.

“So. This doesn’t seem good.”

He looks around, trying to get his bearings. He thinks they’re still in the Brooklyn Army Terminal—the walls and general layout look about right for that—and when he looks up, he sees that part of the roof has crumbled or caved in, open to the sky, which is the soft blue-violet color of twilight. The room itself is big, and from what Sam can see of it, it looks like an ad hoc lab space, though it’s none too sterile. In fact, it looks mad-scientist disorganized: machinery placed seemingly haphazardly, crates both stacked and sprawling all over the floor, a half-dozen lab benches covered in scientific clutter. Sam’s own wing pack and shield have been tossed carelessly a few yards away, along with a sizable pile of what must have been Bucky’s weapons.

Sam tries to get FRIDAY on comms, and Bucky shakes his head. “I tried that earlier, our comms are either fried, or they’re in that pile of our stuff over there. You think you can get yourself free?”

He tests the cord binding him, straining to create any slack or give, but it’s no good. He’s tied too tightly, and with his hands behind him, his shoulders seriously protest any vigorous attempts to break free. There’s slightly more give in the bindings around his ankles—maybe if he can manage to wriggle out of his boots, or break the chair…

“Not any time soon. You?”

Bucky grimaces. “Tried already, no luck. These things must be made for an enhanced person—“

“They are, in fact, made for enhanced individuals,” says the man who enters the room at a harried and hurried kind of pace.

It only takes seconds for Sam to recognize him: Dr. Curtis Connors, whose role in this whole thing seems to now be confirmed as _mad scientist who’s turning people into lizard monsters_.

Mad scientist or not, there’s nothing immediately concerning about his affect. He seems annoyed, but not agitated, and his slightly rumpled business casual clothes suggest a man who’s just rushed out of the office, not someone who’s on a murder spree. It’s not helping Sam come up with a motive for whatever’s going on here.

“And why’s that, Dr. Connors?” Sam asks.

“For contingencies, given the course of my work,” says Connors, almost absentmindedly, as he rummages around one of the lab tables until he finds a hoop of metal. “Granted, this isn’t quite the sort of contingency I was expecting, but needs must and all.”

“Where’s Rick Jacobs?” asks Bucky, and that actually makes Connors look up to glare at Sam and Bucky.

“If you two hadn’t come barging in, I would have the answer to that question. But since you did, Rick got away. My greatest success, and he slipped through my fingers!”

Sam exchanges a glance with Bucky, a silent _keep him talking,_ as Connors hooks something up to the metal hoop, a cord that runs to something that looks a lot like an old-school Walkman cassette player.

“So…he was supposed to turn into a lizard monster?” prompts Sam.

“Rick is no _monster_. He is a _higher being_. Faster, stronger, keener senses, able to heal rapidly—“

“Yeah, okay, I’m all of that too, pal, and I’m not running around looking like a were-lizard and murdering innocent people,” cuts in Bucky.

“You are _broken,_ ” hisses Connors, and Bucky’s eyes narrow with anger. “An incomplete experiment. Your prosthetic is impressive, sure, but it’s not the real thing. I need the real thing, I need to be whole,” he says, slapping at the stump that’s all that remains of his right arm.

Bucky understandably does not look particularly sympathetic to this take on being an amputee, his eyebrows rising to a decidedly offended height.

Before Bucky can let out the _fuck you_ that Sam’s pretty sure is coming, Sam says, “Just because you’re an amputee, doesn’t mean you’re not whole,” trying for his most soothing counselor voice. It doesn’t work.

“Spare me your platitudes,” says Connors with a sneer. “Why should I settle for a painful and inadequate prosthetic, when I can be _better_? When I can regrow my arm, just like lizards regrow their tails? When I can achieve a better evolution? Reptiles are extraordinary creatures, you know. Look at the alligator. Scarcely changed from its ancestors 80 million years ago, because it has had no _need_ to change! It’s near-perfect as is! Humans should strive for that perfection! I have _achieved_ that perfection with my Lizard Formula, if only Rick will—“

“Rick has _killed_ people. Innocent people, for no reason,” says Bucky, and Connors shrugs.

“The predatory instincts need to be tweaked, that’s all,” he says, and jams the Walkman-looking thing into his pants pocket before putting the hoop on over his head. “Once I retrieve Rick, I’ll have the data and the samples I need to perfect the Lizard Formula.” He glances appraisingly at Sam and Bucky. “And new subjects to test it on. You can be my control, so to speak, Captain. Or perhaps I can achieve better results on an already enhanced individual.”

Sam’s stomach lurches as he imagines just what a transformation into a lizard monster might entail—he’s guessing it’ll be a hell of a lot worse than a magical transformation into a falcon—and Bucky goes bone-white.

“No,” he says with low vehemence. Sam hates the horror he can hear in Bucky’s tone, but he hates the note of despair even more.

How do you talk down a mad scientist, Sam wonders. Reason? Empathy? He has no goddamn idea, and no leverage besides.

“Dr. Connors, whatever you think you’ve discovered, whatever breakthrough you’ve made, we can do this the right way. You can talk to Dr. Banner—“

“You expect me to _share_ my research? You want me to be entangled in endless rounds of IRB, when greatness is in my grasp?” Connors scoffs. “Absolutely not. There are some kinks to be worked out, but my work must be shared, people must see that the Lizard Formula is humanity’s next evolution. And who better to show them that than two of Earth’s mightiest heroes?”

“And I guess it doesn’t matter to you that we don’t want to be your science experiments?” demands Sam.

“Yeah, I, personally, have had enough of being experimented on by evil scientists,” says Bucky.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” soothes Connors. “Don’t you want your arm back, Barnes? Don’t you want to be even _better_? And Captain, don’t you want to be as strong as your predecessor?”

Sam just shakes his head, even though he’s thinking, _well, yeah, maybe, sometimes_. But not as a goddamn lizard monster.

“Being a super soldier science experiment doesn’t make me _better_ ,” spits out Bucky, and Connors shakes his head, as if he’s disappointed.

“You’ll see. Now, Rick can’t have gotten far…” he mutters, then he wanders off, heedless of Sam and Bucky’s shouts after him.

* * *

After Connors leaves, they’re silent for a long moment. Bucky’s practicing some calming deep breathing, it looks like, which is a good idea, actually, so Sam joins him until the pounding of his heart slows down from furious to focused.

“Someone’s going to notice, when we don’t check in or make it back to the Tower,” says Sam. “They’ll find us.”

“Hopefully before Connors comes back to give us a dose of Lizard Formula. We have no idea how long it’ll take him to find Jacobs.”

“He couldn’t have found a better name for it?” Sam wonders. It gets the point across, he supposes, but it’s pretty basic, as names go.

Bucky glares. “I don’t care what it’s called, I just don’t want to be a science experiment. Again,” he says, his voice strained.

For all that his breathing is still slow and deliberate, Bucky’s hands are clenching and unclenching in their bindings. He’s scared, Sam realizes, and with good reason. This has got to be the stuff of literal nightmares for Bucky. Sam’s not exactly enjoying it either.

“We’ll get out of here before that happens,” says Sam, in his most reassuring voice. “C’mon, look around, is there anything we can use, anything we can do?”

They both look around as best they can with their limited range of movement. Maybe Sam can maneuver over to one of the lab benches? He might be able to manage a kind of rocking, hopping motion with the chair…but without his hands free, he couldn’t do much. He looks over at Bucky’s restraints, which clamp over his wrists and ankles to attach to the column behind him. They’re magnetic, probably, and if there’s a way to disengage them, Connors probably has it.

Bucky twists his left wrist against the restraints, a frown of concentration on his face. “I can maybe get my arm off, but not sure that’ll help any.”

“Yeah, not unless your arm can move around on its own.”

“I’ll have to suggest that to Shuri,” says Bucky dryly. “Have you got anything?”

“I could hop around maybe…” Sam looks up, and spots the hole in the roof again, where the shadows are deep, but…is there movement there? He strains to hear the flutter of wings. “Hey, birds! Up there, yeah you! Can I get an assist down here?”

A couple of pigeons flap down from their roost to perch warily on some machinery a couple yards away.

“Seems bad, bird-man,” says one of them.

“Guess you’re not top of the food chain, huh,” says the other. “That’s rough, buddy.”

“Yeah, no, it’s not great, so, uh, a little help here?”

“Sam, I really don’t think the pigeons can help—“ starts Bucky, and the pigeons bob their heads in agreement.

“Shiny arm man is right. We’re clearing out before lizard-man comes back.”

Shit.

“Okay, yeah, that’s fair, but could you, like, get us some help—“

“ _Sam_ —“ starts Bucky, now decidedly strident, with his eyebrows reaching peak grumpy cat position.

“What are we, carrier pigeons? You got a letter for us?” says one of the pigeons with a frankly insulting level of mockery.

Though the pigeon’s not wrong. A pigeon’s not exactly Lassie, no one’s likely to follow one to find little Timmy down the well. Sam really wishes he had a more helpful kind of bird here, like—

“Can you bring some crows here please?”

Because crows are clever, and crows can use tools, and that means they’re the best hope for helping them get out of here. It’s a long shot, maybe, but Sam figures a crow’s most likely to be able to find something in here to help them. Plus, some crows can actually talk, like parrots can, right? Worst comes to worst, maybe Sam can get them to find the nearest cop while cawing for help.

“Yeah, alright,” say the pigeons, and then they fly away.

Sam’s almost scared to look at Bucky once the pigeons leave, because he can practically feel the incredulous rage emanating from Bucky’s direction.

“Can you _stop_ with this talking to birds bullshit? It was funny at first, okay, I really applaud your commitment to the joke and everything, but we need an actual plan here, Wilson.”

Shit, Bucky’s actually pissed. Sam is well aware that this is why he should never have lied in the first place—this is the moment in the fable where he, the wrongdoer, receives his comeuppance by losing the trust of his partner and also maybe by being turned into a lizard monster. He’s really hoping he can avoid the latter, because upsetting Bucky is actually bad enough. Bucky’s so habitually even-tempered that seeing him so visibly mad feels way, way worse than Sam could have ever expected.

“Okay, A of all, it was never a joke, and second, it may have been a lie at one point but it’s for real now, I swear.”

“What?” snaps Bucky, and Sam takes a deep breath. Time to come clean, even if it’s absolutely mortifying.

“It was a dumb lie, okay! I know it was a dumb lie, but I got in too deep, and then I got turned into a bird, and when Wanda turned me back, I really _could_ talk to birds—“

Bucky gapes at him. “Why would you lie about having an honestly kind of useless superpower?”

“Hey, it’s not useless!”

“Seriously, you’re already Captain America. Why would you need a fake superpower on top of that?”

“Yeah, well, that’s the thing: I’m Captain America, and I am—or was—a totally normal, unenhanced human, who’s on a team with a bunch of people who have super strength, or magic.”

Bucky’s brow furrows. “So? You’re—you’re a really good Captain America, you know that, right? You work so hard, and you can _fly_ , and you’re amazing with the shield. You save people _all the time_ , in big ways and little ways, like—remember the thing in Karachi? You got us all through that apartment complex, even though we couldn’t see shit through all that cloaking, and then you talked to every single one of the victims and made sure we stuck around until all of them were safe with their families.”

“Yeah, so?” says Sam. “That’s all the just the job. I gotta—I have to be the best, okay? I’m Cap, and I’m Black, and there are so many people I can’t let down, and that means I have to be better than the best.”

“And you are! You don’t need stupid superpowers for that! Don’t you see how—how amazing you are?”

Bucky stops then, turning very red before he clamps his lips shut, as if the words flowing out of him have surprised him. He looks down, shifting against his bonds as he takes a couple of measured breaths, before the line of his shoulders steadies and he faces Sam again. He’s still blushing. It’s fucking adorable.

Meanwhile Sam is going through a total perspective shift, like he’s just realized he’s been staring at one of those optical illusions and seeing an old crone when he could’ve been seeing a young woman in fancy clothes. Maybe _he_ hasn’t been courting Bucky—not on purpose anyway—but Bucky’s been courting _him._ He’s been so caught up in his own shit, stressing about whether he’s a good enough Captain America, letting himself fixate on Bucky’s competence and how Sam himself measures up, that he hadn’t noticed what even the birds had. That it’s not just Sam’s issues and Bucky’s competence that’ve been getting Sam all riled up. That it’s been so long since he’s wanted someone, really wanted them, that he’d almost forgotten what it’s like.

Well, better late than never. Sam smiles, helpless and thrilled.

“What can I say, when your partner’s good at literally everything, it kinda gives you a complex.”

“What?” says Bucky, and the total, oblivious confusion on his face makes all of the resentment and annoyance that have been simmering away at a low boil inside Sam vaporize into a sweet and hot steam, nothing left but pure fondness. Apparently they’ve _both_ been dumbasses.

“Bucky,” says Sam, feeling helplessly tender all of a sudden. “You’re—you’re good at everything. Fighting, shooting, using the shield, flying spaceships, speaking very damn language known to man, saving _bees_ for god’s sake. And that’s not even counting everything else.”

Bucky’s eyes are very wide now, his pink lips parting in surprise. “I—what do you mean everything else?”

Sam gives him a look, shooting for unimpressed by his cluelessness but probably landing on exasperated affection instead. Clearly, it’s the oblivious leading the clueless here. Steve and Natasha are never gonna let them hear the end of this.

“You know, how you’re really hot, and also very strong and brave, and sweet, and really good at courting, you should hear what the birds say—anyway. You make it all look so damn easy, and you’re not even an asshole about it. It’s kind of a high standard. And it’s, you know, a lot to deal with, in a partner.”

“Oh. I—I thought—uh, at first, I kinda thought you didn’t—you didn’t even want me as a partner. Or on the team.”

“What?”

“You kept—you kept saying stuff about how I didn’t need any help, and making cracks about how I should be Cap, and I thought—I thought you were fucking with me. Throwing the whole Winter Soldier thing in my face.”

“ _What_?”

All the blood rushes from Sam’s face, and his stomach gives a sick lurch. _Fuck_. He hadn’t even realized his own issues had turned him into such a self-centered asshole.

Bucky flushes again, avoiding Sam’s gaze. “Yeah, no, I figured that wasn’t really it around the time you kept, you know, looking at me a lot and calling me hot. But then you didn’t really do anything? Or maybe I’m just, really not good at flirting...?“

“Oh my god, I’m such an asshole,” groans Sam. “I’m sorry, Bucky, that was all my insecurity and shit, I wasn’t—I wasn’t trying to be a dick to you. Not that it matters, obviously, if I hurt you, fuck. I’m so sorry—”

“Sam, don’t. It’s okay. I—I figured you didn’t hate me or whatever,” says Bucky, now actually meeting Sam’s eyes again, an uncertain tilt to his mouth. “But, uh, I’ve been getting real mixed signals here, Sam, and if—”

“Yo, bird-man! You needed us?”

“Oh, this is a bad scene. Bad bad scene.”

Two crows flap into the room, and land on the lab benches, immediately beginning to peck and poke curiously around the cluttered surfaces. Right, remembers Sam. They’re still tied up in the lair of a mad scientist. That is definitely what Sam should be focused on rather than what’s going on between him and Bucky.

“Yeah, it’s not great,” Sam tells the crows. “Thanks for coming.”

“I can’t believe we’re relying on a couple of crows to get out of this,” says Bucky, and his tone is half wondering and half disbelieving.

“The crows can’t believe it either,” says one of the crows, and Sam laughs.

“Hey, beggars can’t be choosers,” says Sam.

The crows fly closer, circling around Sam. One of them stops behind Sam, and when Sam twists around as best he can to see it, he sees the crow pecking carefully at Sam’s bindings.

“Can’t undo this, bird-man. Too big, too tight. I got skills, sure, but I only got a beak, yeah? No fancy opposable thumbs.”

“Maybe if you can find a knife around here somewhere? There should be one in that pile over there,” tries Sam, gesturing with a nod of his chin towards the pile of Bucky’s weaponry, and the crow behind Sam heads in that direction.

The other crow is already exploring all the machinery and lab benches. “Lotta shiny stuff here! Lotta stinky stuff too.” The crow finds a colorful binder clip. “Hey, can I have this?”

“Uh, sure, you can have whatever. Just, if you could look around for any kinda knife—“

“Or some kinda remote?” suggests Bucky. “If, uh, you know what that is?”

“A remote?” Sam asks.

“Something controls these cuffs. They’re magnetic, and they’re meant to hold someone who’s enhanced, so it’s probably something that works at a distance.”

“Could just be Connors’ phone,” says Sam, and Bucky shrugs, then winces as the movement pulls on muscles that are likely straining by now.

“Buttons!” exclaims one of the crows. “Remotes have a lotta buttons. I love buttons! All kinds of buttons, pushing buttons, pants buttons, shirts buttons, jacket buttons, big red buttons—“

As the crow regales them with its litany of buttons, it pecks at every button or button-like thing in sight: the keys of an open laptop, the buttons on assorted scientific equipment, the buttons on a calculator, the button on what looks like a key fob—

The clamps holding Bucky’s arms up disengage with a click and fall to the floor.

“Holy shit, they did it,” says Sam.

“I found a knife!” exclaims the other crow. “It’s mine now.”

“What are you even going to do with a knife?” Sam asks it, but it doesn’t answer, too busy admiring its new knife. Sam’s just gonna have to hope that murders of crows don’t do actual murders.

Meanwhile, Bucky bends down and uses his left arm to pull off the remaining clamps holding his ankles. It takes him a fair amount of effort, judging by the grimace on his face, but he does it, and then he’s free. He jogs over to Sam, and undoes the cords tying him up before helping him out of the chair, his hands gentle on Sam’s shoulders.

“Alright?” Bucky asks him, and in answer, Sam kisses him.

It’s really not the best time, what with how Jacobs or Connors could be back at any moment, but Sam can’t leave Bucky with any doubt about what he wants. He needs to make sure Bucky knows that as much of an inadvertent, clueless asshole as Sam has been, there aren’t going to be any more mixed signals.

Sam wants him. It seems dumb, not to have noticed that, but god, Sam’s noticing now, months’ worth of unacknowledged sexual frustration and suppressed or ignored desire going off like fireworks inside of him as he takes Bucky in: the thrilling intensity of his pale eyes, the serious and determined set of his jaw, the strength and grace in the way he moves…and how he’s still as ludicrously competent as usual. Sam, somewhat belatedly, suspects he might have a competence kink. So he kisses Bucky.

They don’t have time for anything more than a swift press of lips, which means it’s really not the best first kiss ever, and Bucky’s too surprised to do much else other than gasp in surprise against his lips. It’s a placeholder of a kiss, more than anything else, a firm IOU that declares Sam’s intentions here without a shadow of a doubt. But even so, it’s enough for Sam to feel the heat of Bucky’s lips against his, to share a breath of thrilled anticipation between them, before Sam pulls back.

“No mixed signals,” Sam tells him. “Just—let’s come back to this, okay?”

“Yeah,” says Bucky, flatteringly breathless and wide-eyed. “Okay.”

“Is this a mating thing?” asks a crow. “You humans do mouth stuff for mating, right? Are you two about to mate?”

“No, we are not about to mate, it’s not exactly the right time and place for that,” Sam tells it, and Bucky blinks in surprise and confusion. “Sorry, the crow was asking.”

“About us _mating_?” demands Bucky incredulously, and Sam just shrugs. Bucky shakes his head and starts stowing away his truly ludicrous quantity of weaponry.

The crow nods. “Right, right, of course, you gotta do it proper, court him nicely. Get him some gifts, I say, some real nice, shiny stuff, a guy with an arm like that, he’s got real discerning taste, I bet! You want, I could show you where to—“

“Okay, thanks! Thank you so much! We gotta go find the lizard monster and the mad scientist now, before they eat any more people or birds!”

“Do I even wanna know?” murmurs Bucky, as they both scramble to retrieve their weapons and equipment, and Sam laughs.

“Not really,” he says. He finds his phone, and grimaces when he sees how busted it is. “Any chance your phone is in decent enough shape to call the team?”

“Nope,” says Bucky, unearthing his own similarly battered and broken phone. “Can’t find our comms anywhere either.”

“Damn. Oh well, let’s get out of here. We can borrow a phone or run down some cops if we’ve got time. Let’s go.”

Sam turns to leave, but Bucky clears his throat. “Uh, is the crow just gonna…keep my knife?”

“Yeah, it’s the crows’ knife now,” Sam tells him, and watches as Bucky accepts this improbable but true fact with the grim acceptance of a man who’d once had to dodge a talking raccoon’s attempts to steal his arm.

“Mine!” confirms the crow happily.

“Right,” says Bucky slowly. “Of course. Um, thanks for the help?” he tells the crows awkwardly.

“He’s a keeper!” says one of the crows, and the other one concurs.

“Yeah, this one’s mate material, bird-man. Remember what I told you, you gotta get him gifts!”

* * *

They leave Connors’ makeshift mad scientist lair, and Sam’s relieved to find Connors hadn’t dragged them off to a secondary location; they’re still somewhere in the Brooklyn Army Terminal, and dilapidated and abandoned or not, there are still plenty of helpful EXIT signs to show them the way out. So they make their way out of the Brooklyn Army Terminal as quickly and stealthily as they can, alert to any signs of Jacobs or Connors. Despite the horror movie feel of it all—empty, abandoned hallways under dead or flickering lights, the occasional ominous creak and clanging noise—their path out is uneventful. Sam does have a moment of disorientation when they get outside though, like when you walk out of a movie theater, surprised to see just how dark it’s gotten outside.

“Shit, what time is it?” he wonders, looking up at the night sky, unease cutting through the adrenaline to make his stomach lurch. What if this is like after the Blip, on the battlefield in Wakanda, what if they’ve lost years again—

“Just after nine, we weren’t out for long,” answers Bucky, with a soothing level of confidence, though Sam knows Bucky hasn’t got a watch on him. “Team should be looking for us by now.”

And in fact, when they get to the ferry dock, Hope and Scott are there, consulting with the NYPD. There’s a lot of activity in the waters near the ferry dock, NYPD boats sweeping the water with high-powered searchlights, and a couple choppers doing the same as they circle further down the harbor, the dull thump of their rotors just audible.

“Hey, you looking for us?” Sam calls out as they jog towards their teammates, and Scott and Hope turn towards them, the relief obvious on their faces.

“You’re late,” says Hope, her severe tone at odds with the smile on her face.

“We ran into some trouble with Connors,” Sam tells her. “Turns out, he really has gone full mad scientist. He’s got a lab in the Army Terminal, wants to perfect some kind of Lizard Formula to turn people into lizard monsters.”

“And Jacobs? Is he an accomplice or victim?” asks Scott. “Because he jumped onto the NYPD’s boat, took a few swipes at ‘em, then dived into the harbor. No sign of Connors yet though.”

“We gotta find Jacobs before Connors does. Seems like Jacobs is probably a victim in all this, but he’s still dangerous, and we can’t let Connors find him and use him to make more of his mutant lizard formula,” says Bucky.

“So, do we all stick to searching the harbor?” asks Hope. “If Connors is going after Jacobs, he’s gotta be doing it in a boat, right?”

“Connors doesn’t have a boat of his own, so he would’ve had to steal one,” says Scott, and taps at his communicator. “FRIDAY, where’s the nearest marina to our current location, and can you tell us if any boats have gone missing in the last couple of hours?” After a moment, Scott grins in triumph. “Got him. There’s one boat unaccounted for at the closest marina. FRIDAY’s sending us the details now.”

“Good thinking, Scott,” says Sam, impressed. “Alright, you two, take one of the NYPD boats and go after Connors. Me and Bucky are gonna try to find Jacobs.”

“Hopefully without going for a swim,” says Bucky.

* * *

So they split up the team again, with Scott and Hope giving them spare comms before they go, and Parker coordinating from the Tower where he can keep an eye on any reports of suspicious lizard-related activity. Then Sam has to convince Bucky that the best way to find Jacobs is if Sam looks from the air, with his UV-enabled goggles, while Bucky’s in a boat.

“I don’t like the idea of splitting up even more, Sam,” Bucky says with a frown.

“It’s night time, and I know you’ve got super senses, but it’s not gonna be easy to spot one lizard-man in the harbor in the dark. But if I can look for him from the air, in the full UV spectrum, I’ll have a way better shot of finding him.”

“Alright,” concedes Bucky. “But don’t make like one of your bird friends and try to pull him out of the water. Leave catching him to me.”

“You got it,” Sam says.

It takes a mostly boring couple of hours of flying low over the water before Sam spots the telltale flash of unnatural color in the dark waters of the harbor. He alerts Bucky, who grumbles about the impossibility of a stealthy approach, but who does still manage to get the NYPD boat he’s commandeered close to Jacobs.

“Maybe we should try to talk to him,” suggests Sam, circling low over the boat, his hand already twitching towards the shield, just in case.

“We can talk to him after we’ve got him,” says Bucky, and then he pulls out a weapon Sam doesn’t recognize, something that looks like a compact shotgun with a huge arrow attached to the barrel.

“Is that a harpoon gun?” hisses Sam. “Where were you even _keeping_ that? And don’t kill him!”

“He’ll heal,” is all Bucky says, and then he’s taking aim with his trademark unhurried calm. Despite the way the boat is moving with the waves, Bucky’s balance is rock steady, and he seems impossibly still as he sights down the barrel of the harpoon gun and fires. The harpoon lands, of course, and Jacobs lets out an unholy screeching shout as Bucky grimly reels him in.

“We’re gonna get you some help, Mr. Jacobs!” Sam shouts, then he lands on the boat to help Bucky get Jacobs restrained. “We’re gonna find Connors, figure out what he did to you, and we’re gonna try to fix it, okay? Just—don’t fight us, please!”

Jacobs is either too exhausted and hurt to bother trying to escape, or Sam’s words are actually getting through to him, because he doesn’t fight once they wrestle him onto the boat, and he doesn’t even try to pull out the harpoon lodged in his side. He keeps his face turned away from them, and submits to being restrained, and the only sound he makes is a keening moan when they work the harpoon free. His wound begins to heal almost instantly.

“Sorry about that,” Bucky says softly. “I know you just wanted to get away, but it’s not safe, okay? For you, or for anyone else. But we’re gonna help you, alright?”

They keep talking to Jacobs until they get back to shore. Sam hopes it reminds the poor guy that he’s still human, and hopes even more that they’ll be able to fix this. No one deserves to be so changed, to be turned monstrous, against their will.

When they escort Jacobs off the boat, he finally speaks, or tries to.

“Sorry,” he hisses, the word coming out slightly garbled. Probably on account of the mouthful of big sharp teeth he has now, thinks Sam. “I—hard to keep control.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” says Bucky gently. “It’s not your fault, alright? We’ll figure this out. Dr. Banner will be able to help. Just hang in there, okay?”

* * *

Sam doesn’t feel great about leaving Jacobs, but finding Connors is now the priority, so they send Jacobs off to the Avengers’ secure holding facility, and then they rejoin the search for Connors. Connors must know he’s the subject of a manhunt by now—ferry services have been suspended and the harbor is crawling with cop boats—so maybe he’s ditched the boat and gone to ground. With no sign of the missing boat yet, and no alerts from FRIDAY or law enforcement that Connors has been spotted elsewhere, they keep searching the harbor anyway.

Not long after midnight, Parker checks in with them.

“So nothing to worry about, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones are handling it, and so’s Animal Control, but...apparently there are some alligators crawling out of the sewers in Manhattan? They’re not, like, hurting anyone, but...you know, gators.”

“Shit, you think that’s Connors’ work? Or is it Jacobs?” asks Sam.

“I mean, maybe? I don’t know how this whole Lizard Formula thing works. But Jacobs is asleep in the secure room of the infirmary, Dr. Banner’s on his way back to take a look at him,” reports Parker. “Plus it’s not like alligators are gonna be able to get up to the 89th floor.”

“If it’s Jacobs, it might not be on purpose,” says Bucky. “Like, you got turned into a bird, and now you can talk to birds, right? Maybe he can talk to all reptiles and doesn’t realize it, or maybe they’re drawn to him or something.”

“What, some kinda psychic bond with all reptiles?”

“Sure, why not. And if it’s Connors...well, I dunno, maybe he overestimates the bloodthirstiness of New York’s sewer gators.”

Great, just what the night needs. Random alligators roaming around the streets of Manhattan. Sam sighs and rubs at his forehead. “I like how you’re just casually accepting the reality of sewer gators. And by like, I mean: what the fuck, man?”

Bucky shrugs. “I mean, alligators in the sewers of New York are basically normal, right?” he muses. “Like, it’s been an urban legend since I was a kid for a reason.”

“Don’t normalize sewer gators, Barnes,” says Sam, because he’s really not sure he wants to live in a world where New York’s subterranean wildlife includes alligators along with enormous rats. He taps his comms again. “Keep an eye on the gator situation, Parker. We’re gonna keep looking for Connors.”

“Aye aye, Cap!”

* * *

It’s a long, damp night of searching the harbor, and by dawn, dew is beading on Sam’s wings and he’s exhausted. Even Bucky’s beginning to look a little haggard. Sam’s about to call for a break, so they can rest a little and maybe come up with a new search strategy, preferably on solid ground rather than at sea, when his ears catch the faint sound of some kind of unholy cacophony of shouting somewhere in the distance.

“You hear that?” Sam asks Bucky, and Bucky tilts his head in a listening pose.

“Sounds like geese honking,” he says.

Now, an interesting and/or deeply annoying side effect of Sam’s new ability to talk to birds is that the usual dawn and morning chorus of birdsong is no longer quite the pleasant and bucolic connection to nature that it had once been. No, now that Sam knows what the birds are saying, it’s not all song, it’s a near-riotous din of city-wide conversation, consisting mostly of strident calls for food and attention, a collective avian stream of consciousness. Even the noisy geese aren’t usually quite this noisy though; if the Spider Kid has a spider sense, then Sam has something like a bird sense, and it’s definitely all a-tingle now.

“They’re louder than usual,” Sam says. “Let’s go check it out, maybe they’ve found something. I think there are a bunch of geese over on Governor’s Island, it’s probably them.”

They tell the skipper to head for the island, and as they get closer, it’s obvious that something’s up. There’s an enormous gaggle of Canada geese congregating on the shoreline and in the sky over it, so many of them that they’re obscuring whatever’s on the beach.

“Now what do you think is going on there?” wonders Sam, though he suspects he knows.

“Geese being their usual asshole selves?” suggests Bucky, but he looks intrigued too.

The skipper swears, then says, “You know, Governor’s Island has a goose herding dog. Supposed to chase the damn things off so they don’t shit on everything and go after people. Maybe the geese are going after the poor thing?”

“Get us closer,” says Bucky, and the skipper grumbles about goose shit, but does take the boat closer.

They’re close enough now that Sam can make out what the angry furor is about.

“Our territory! Ours! Get out get out get out!!!”

“If you take even one look at my precious eggs, I will end you, you hear me! I will fucking end you!!”

“Get the fuck outta here! We’re not for eatin’!”

“Get it! Make that freak of nature go back in the water where it came from!!”

Damn, Sam’s always known geese are assholes, but he didn’t realize they’re such foul-mouthed assholes. He powers his wingpack up again, and gets ready to take off.

“Uh, you sure you wanna fly into that?” asks Bucky, looking warily at the huge and furious gaggle of hissing geese.

“They won’t hurt me,” says Sam. “Probably.”

They might cover him in foul shit, but they probably won’t hurt him. And if they do, well, he has the shield, doesn’t he? Though it’s probably not befitting the shield’s dignity if it ends up covered in goose shit. Worst comes to worst, he can always make like his falcon namesake and divebomb his way through the goose cortex of rage.

Sam flies over the gaggle first, and calls down to them. “Hey geese, what’s going on down there? You need any help?”

“Oh, now there’s a fuckin’ bird-man too, what the fuck! This ain’t your territory, get the hell out!”

“I know, I know,” soothes Sam. “I’m not here to horn in on your territory, or hurt any of you. Don’t know if you’ve heard from the pigeons or crows, but there’s a bad guy on the loose, might be hurting birds.”

Sam’s simplifying here, since they’ve already got Jacobs, but it’s not a lie, exactly.

One of the geese flies up out of the mass of the angry gaggle to circle Sam. “Yeah, we mighta heard something about that from the crows. A big bad lizard-man, right?” it asks.

“Yeah! Yeah, is that—” Sam tries to peer through the flapping wings of what has to be at least two dozen angry geese. “Is that who’s down there?”

“Yeah, we thought he was gonna go after our eggs. You gonna get him out of here?”

“That’s the plan. You guys mind helping me out?”

“Interloper!” shrieks one of the geese, the cry taken up by at least a dozen more, and Sam winces.

“Calm your asses down! Bird-man’s here to deal with lizard-man, make a hole!” honks the goose, and the gaggle only disperses slightly.

Sam winces. He doesn’t relish trying to fly through that unscathed. God, why are geese such assholes? Maybe it’s time to try a different tack. He flies down a little closer to the geese. One of them snaps at his ankles.

“Hey! Listen, hey, can I be real with y’all for a sec? You see shiny arm man, he’s on the boat over there?”

A few geese allow that they do. “No wings,” says one of them. “But look at that arm gleam!”

The golden seams of Bucky’s vibranium arm are in fact gleaming in the early morning light, and the light is just as kind to the rest of him, picking out glowing copper highlights in his shiny hair and lending richness to his summer-tanned skin.

“I bet you long to test it,” says another goose.

“What?”

“The arm!”

“Test it—how…?”

“I seen humans do stuff!” it says, in a frankly horrifyingly salacious tone. Jesus, what is _wrong_ with geese?

But yeah, maybe Sam’s had some thoughts— _focus, Wilson!_

“Yeah, that’s—I’m working on courting him. And if I really wanna impress him, I gotta pull off this hunt right here. And I gotta make it look good, you know? No getting a ton of goose crap all over my fancy wings.”

“Listen, if we gotta shit, we gotta shit,” says one of the geese.

“Yeah, no, of course, but if you could just, like, not shit on me? C’mon, do me a solid, I’m trying to get a mate, you know? I need something impressive to court him.”

The geese confer for a moment, looking back and forth between Sam and Bucky as they wheel gracefully in the sky.

“Yeah alright,” says one of them. “For the romance, yeah? We geese believe in love, you know? Me and my mate, we been together for a long time now. He did some real dumb shit, trying to court me, and it worked! So this’ll probably work too.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“Yo, let bird-man through! He’s gotta win his mate!” the goose shouts, and the gaggle of geese clears enough to reveal a decidedly bedraggled, shat-upon, and mid-lizard transformation Dr. Connors.

Sam climbs up into the air with a few hopefully impressive beats of his wings, then drops into a dive, shooting clean and easy through a wedge of geese, right to Connors, who he snatches up as quickly and easily as any peregrine falcon grabbing its prey. When Sam neatly deposits a geese-battered Connors onto the deck of the boat, his wings and shield shining and entirely clear of goose shit, he’s rewarded with the sight of Bucky’s sparkling smile, and better still, his laugh, the big and bright and genuine one that makes his nose wrinkle up adorably.

“Wilson, you goddamn showoff,” says Bucky, still smiling.

“I think it worked!” calls out a goose. “Now take your mate and get outta here!”

* * *

“So, I take back everything I said about talking to birds being a totally useless superpower,” says Bucky as they hand off Connors to a waiting War Machine and Bruce back on shore in Brooklyn. “That was pretty impressive.”

“What’d I tell you? I got bird skills, Barnes,” Sam tells him, and does his best to affect a casual, flirty pose. It’s not easy, when he has the wingpack and the shield on, but Sam thinks it's working.

“Yeah, you do,” he says. “Sorry I ever doubted.”

Bucky tilts his head then, and somehow that small motion is impossibly sexy; something about the way it draws attention to the stubbled and strong line of his jaw, or maybe it’s the satisfied and secretive curve of his lips, or the way his eyes have gone just a little heavy-lidded, his long lashes casting pretty shadows over the blue of his eyes, every small gesture like an invitation.

Sam’s tired and sore and hungry, but all of that’s nothing in comparison to just how much he _wants_ right now.

Rhodey retracts his face plate, and squints suspiciously at both of them. “Huh,” he says. “How about you two head home, get cleaned up, get some sleep. Debrief can wait until tomorrow, once Banner’s had a chance to take a look at our lizard friends.”

“Thanks, Rhodey,” says Sam, relieved that his already long day—night? morning? God, Sam needs a break—isn’t getting longer.

“You can come over to my place, if you don’t wanna make the schlep back to Harlem,” suggests Bucky.

Sam may be tired, but that offer zings down his spine to pool anticipatory, fluttering warmth in his stomach. It’s enough to give him a second wind, that’s for sure.

“Inviting me over already? Moving kind of fast there, Bucky,” Sam teases, and Bucky shoots Sam a coy and infuriatingly sexy smirk.

“Hey now, I thought we’ve been courting a while now? According to the birds, that is.”

“And we don’t wanna disappoint the birds, of course,” says Sam, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “Lead the way.”

For all the innuendo they’ve just been tossing back and forth, and even with the blood-pumping promise of Bucky’s invitation, it’s when Bucky offers his hand to hold that Sam really realizes this is it, he’s doing this, _they’re_ doing this, and it’s gonna be _good_. Because Bucky’s hand is warm and trusting in Sam’s, and his smile turns sweeter even than the summer morning sunshine when Sam gives his hand a squeeze.

God, Sam was stupid not to have noticed what's been in his reach this whole time. That’s okay, though. He’s gonna start to make up for it this morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did the chapter count change??? MAYBE, shhh, don't worry, pay no attention to my inability to guesstimate remaining word counts. one last chapter to come in the next couple of days, if work doesn't intrude too much.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter earns the E rating!

They take the subway to Bucky’s place, and god bless New Yorkers and especially Brooklynites, because they barely earn a second glance despite being in full uniform and smelling faintly briny. Instead they’re just another couple of commuters, not so dissimilar from the folks headed back home after night shifts, their paths crossing with the early morning commuters headed to work. Sam even manages to get a quick nap in against Bucky’s shoulder, secure in the knowledge that Bucky will wake him once they get to their stop, and also keep anyone from stealing the shield and his wings.

“This is our stop,” murmurs Bucky after what feels like just five minutes, but which has probably been closer to thirty, and they head up and out into a fine late summer morning. Sam’s punch-drunk enough after a long day and night hunting for lizard monsters that everything takes on a downright dreamy cast: the warm sunshine, the gentle cacophony of Brooklyn’s avian and human life, and Bucky’s hand tangled in his, their fingers intertwined.

On the way to Bucky’s apartment, they stop at a bodega for breakfast, ordering a truly ridiculous number of breakfast sandwiches. While they wait, Sam sips on the largest coffee available, and watches with unrestrained delight as Bucky cuddles with the resident bodega cat, a huge and fluffy grey monster of a cat who’d trotted over to Bucky the moment they stepped inside.

“Bandito!” Bucky greets him, and scoops him up into his arms. Bandito purrs like a damn chainsaw, evidently very happy to see Bucky judging by the way he nuzzles up against him. “Awww, I missed you too, buddy!”

“You’re friends with the bodega cat?” asks Sam. “Also: his name is Bandito?”

The cashier grins. “Yeah, Bandito loves stealing bananas. No idea why, he doesn’t eat them, he just loves bananas. And candy bars with shiny wrappers too, he grabs and hides them away. He loves Sarge here too, obviously.”

“Who’s a mighty hunter, you are,” coos Bucky, rocking Bandito in his arms like a damn baby.

Sam really wishes he had a working phone right now, he wants to immortalize the ridiculous, adorable sight of the Winter Soldier in full uniform cuddling an enormously fluffy cat. He could put it up on Instagram, maybe. At minimum, he’d send it out to the Avengers’ group chat.

“Oh, damn, you’re a cat person,” Sam realizes. “How did I not know you’re a cat person?”

“I like dogs too, but yeah. What, is it a dealbreaker, bird-man?” asks Bucky with a grin.

“Oh not you too, I get enough of being called bird-man from the actual birds,” says Sam, and Bucky laughs.

“So that’s what they call you! What do they call me? Do I even wanna know?”

“Shiny arm man,” Sam admits, and Bucky laughs again as he lets Bandito leap lightly out of his arms to resume his bodega patrol duties.

“Could be worse, I suppose,” he says.

Once their sandwiches are ready, they head for the closest park to make a quick park bench picnic breakfast of it. On a weekday morning like this one, the park is quiet and not especially crowded, just a few dogs happily playing in sight of their owners, and the only birds around are some chattering sparrows and starlings that seem more interested in finding food and avoiding the dogs than in bugging Sam about his courtship abilities, or lack thereof. Which is about when Sam realizes: this is a date. Sam wants to blame his sleepless night for not catching on sooner, but the truth is, it’s been so comfortable and easy so far, and it’s been so damn long since Sam has been on an actual date, that the slide from post-mission trip home to date has been imperceptible.

“This is a date,” he says, because clearly they need to get better at communicating about these kinds of things.

Bucky glances over at him with a fondly tolerant expression. “Yeah, Sam. At least, I hope it is, anyway. Uh, I’m not sure I’m any good at this flirting and dating thing anymore, but...um, I’d like it if we, you know...” Bucky blushes as he looks away and trails off, his fingers fidgeting nervously with the remains of his sandwich wrapper. He takes a breath and continues, meeting Sam’s eyes. “Actually on-purpose dated. Or courted each other, if you like.”

“You’re doing just fine,” Sam tells him, and reaches over to take his hand. “Hell, you’re great at courting, according to the birds. They caught on way before I did. I’m the dumbass who’s been failing to even notice. I’m sorry about that, by the way. Coming back after the Blip, being Cap...it’s all made me a little too self-centered, I guess, too caught up in my own issues.”

Sam’s only now realizing just how much he’s let the job take over his life. Hell, not only now, as Cap, but even before all the mess with Thanos. Sam’s life outside of work and superheroing has been on hold for a long time now, and he can admit, he’d needed that, after losing Riley. He’d needed to focus on something other than his grief and his own traumas. Though it’s not like his life’s been all work, time spent on the run aside. It’s just that he’s been putting himself last for a good long while now, pushing his wants and desires so far down that he hadn’t even recognized them as desires.

 _Counselor, counsel thyself_ , he thinks wryly. Sam may do alright with the day-to-day self care basics, but he’s clearly been slacking on the long-term self care front.

As if he knows what turn Sam’s thoughts have taken, Bucky snorts and rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, sure, the guy who runs himself ragged helping other people is self-centered.”

“Seriously, Bucky, I’m sorry I ever made you think I didn’t trust you, or that I didn’t want you on my team. You’re an amazing partner, and I’m lucky to have you,” Sam says, because whatever else happens between them, he really needs Bucky to know that.

“It’s okay, Sam, I forgive you,” says Bucky with a soft smile that tilts towards mischief, his eyes crinkling up. “Besides, didn’t take me all that long to realize what was going on.”

Sam narrows his eyes at Bucky. “Oh yeah? And what was going on?”

“You were pulling my pigtails, playground style,” Bucky says, his smile turning smug, and Sam opens his mouth to object, but Bucky continues, “Don’t worry, I wasn’t mad about it. Had some fun of my own, didn’t I?”

“I knew it!” hisses Sam. “No one does that ‘oh look at me being so sexy on my sexy motorcycle, come take a ride with me’ shit without knowing _exactly_ what they’re doing! And trying to share dessert that one time!”

Bucky tips his head back and laughs, and puts an arm around Sam’s shoulders as he does, which: _this smooth motherfucker_. When Sam’s not so damn punch-drunk from exhaustion and exhilaration, he’s going to show Bucky that two can play at this game. Right now though, Sam will settle for a shower and some naked groping, maybe some necking. He pulls Bucky in for a kiss that tastes like breakfast and summer morning, sweet and promising, and it takes all his self-control not to turn it dirty. Bucky has no such compunctions, coaxing Sam’s mouth open with the same kind of calm focus that he brings to taking aim with his rifle, until he’s kissed them both breathless enough that they need a break.

“C’mon,” he says then, and pulls back, his voice gone low and rough in a way that makes Sam feel warm all over, and not just turned-on warm, but comfortable warm, _comforted_ warm, which gives him a simultaneously thrilling and terrifying inkling of just how deep this thing between them could go.

“Yeah,” says Sam, fully intending to get up, but then he darts in for another quick kiss, unable to resist.

The soft and wanting noise Bucky makes in response might as well be a burning match set to the unlit wick of Sam’s heart, setting it alight to burn hot and steady and true—and god willing, long too. Everywhere they’re touching seems to gather heat, hotter even than the sunlight’s radiant warmth: the press of their thighs together, their intertwined fingers, their shoulders brushing against each other, and hell, even the air between them.

“You just gotta be patient,” Sam hears someone whisper. “Soon they’ll get up, and we’ll feast on the crumbs they leave behind! Just wait a little longer….”

Sam’s confused for a second, but then he spots three sparrows a few feet away, and he chuckles.

“What is it?” Bucky murmurs, his eyes already creasing into a smile, like just hearing Sam’s laugh is enough to make him smile, and that makes the heat building between them spread to Sam’s cheeks too.

“Think the sparrows want us to vacate this bench so they can get at our crumbs is all.”

“Oh, well, we can’t deprive the poor little sparrows,” says Bucky, and gets up. “Let’s go.”

So they gather up the detritus of their makeshift breakfast picnic, making sure to scatter plenty of crumbs around in the process, and toss the trash in the nearest trash can. Then by mutual, unspoken agreement, they head for Bucky’s place at a pace just shy of a jog.

* * *

Bucky’s apartment is only a few blocks away, and it’s not long before they’re rushing into his building’s elevator. Sam’s wishing Bucky lived on the ground floor instead of the 14th floor right about now, because it’s like the enclosed space can scarcely hold the heat and wanting that sparks between them, and as Bucky pushes the button for his floor, Sam figures _fuck it_. He gets Bucky up against the elevator wall and kisses the hell out of him, chasing after that sweet and soft little hum of need he’d let out earlier, reveling in the rasp of their stubble and the hot welcome of Bucky’s mouth. When he’s finally rewarded with a moan, low and deep, it practically goes straight to his cock, and then Bucky’s hands are on his waist and his ass, and Sam finally gets his hands in Bucky’s stupidly thick and soft hair and—

The elevator dings. The door slides open to reveal Steve, dressed in his usual post-workout gear, and Sam freezes. For a few seconds they’re all totally silent and frozen in this tableau of awkwardness and surprise, but then Steve blinks and grins, and it’s his dangerously wide, shit-stirring grin.

“So, your latest mission went well, I’m guessing?” he asks with exaggerated innocence, before stepping inside the elevator.

Bucky groans, and knocks his head back against the elevator wall. “ _Steve_ —“

“Oh, don’t let me interrupt you, I was just gonna head up to the roof to water the plants!” he says cheerfully, as the elevator begins moving again.

“You could just take the _stairs_ , Steven,” says Bucky.

“Now why would I do that?” asks Steve with exaggerated innocence.

Sam can’t help it, he laughs, and Bucky shoots him a decidedly betrayed look. He pecks Bucky on the lips, improbably delighted when he can feel Bucky’s nose wrinkle up with exaggerated grumpiness.

“Don’t encourage him,” grumbles Bucky, and now it’s Steve’s turn to laugh.

The elevator dings again, thank fuck: they’ve finally reached Bucky’s floor. Bucky takes Sam’s hand and practically drags him out.

“Love you both, super happy for you!” calls out Steve as the elevator doors begin to close.

“Thanks!” says Sam at the same time as Bucky says, “Fuck off, Steve!”

* * *

Steve’s interruption has thrown just enough cold water on their mutual horniness that Sam and Bucky enter Bucky’s apartment at a somewhat more sedate pace. Which is good, because Sam wants to get a good look around. He’s never been in Bucky’s apartment before, since they all usually end up at Steve’s place a few floors down, and he’s pretty damn curious about what it’s like. A mess? As grim and bare as Steve’s place in DC had been? A marvel of interior design?

It turns out to be none of those things. Sam’s first impression is of a cozy but spare space: the walls are painted a cheerful butter yellow, and everything is tidy, with no more furniture than is strictly necessary,. There are a couple of paintings that Sam recognizes as Steve’s work on the walls, and long, low bookshelves full of books lining much of the room, with a few plants set on top of them. The general effect is of a soothing, lived-in space. This is an actual home, cared for and comfortable, and that’s oddly reassuring. Maybe because it’s proof that Bucky’s planning to stick around, that he’s tethered to this new post-Blip life.

“Hey, this is nice,” says Sam, slinging an arm around Bucky’s waist. “You’ve got a good eye.”

“Thanks,” says Bucky, and ducks his head, clearly a little shy about the praise.

“So, not that I wasn’t extremely into our elevator make-out and all, but you mind if I wash up a little? I smell like the harbor, and maybe also geese.”

“Oh yeah, of course. Bathroom’s the same place as in Steve’s place, our apartment layout is the same. You can borrow some of my clothes, if you don’t wanna get back in uniform.”

“Yeah, that’d be good, thanks. And hey, if you wanna join me…?” Sam offers with a suggestive eyebrow waggle.

Instead of the sly and sexy smirk he’d been hoping for in response, Bucky tilts his head and frowns, glancing in the direction of the bathroom.

“That presents some logistical difficulties,” he says, and shows him to the bathroom.

When he steps inside, Sam sees what Bucky means: instead of your standard shower or tub-shower combo, Bucky has an enormous, old-fashioned claw-foot tub. The shower head is positioned over the tub, but two guys of Sam and Bucky’s size would be an awkward fit at best, and one slip and fall away from broken bones at worst.

“Damn,” says Sam. “My shower’s no good for shower sex either.”

Bucky grins. “That’s what the Avengers’ locker room showers are for.”

“Where any of the Avengers can walk in? Damn, Barnes,” says Sam, and Bucky laughs as he pulls out some towels and toiletries from a cupboard and hands them to Sam.

“You can have the first shower,” he says, and leaves Sam with a kiss on the cheek and some decidedly intriguing thoughts about semi-public shower sex.

Sam nearly asks him to stay, and the urge gives Sam a thrill that’s poised on the knife’s edge of fear and want. It’s too soon by far for the comfortable domesticity of shared bathroom time, and yet, Sam’s craving Bucky’s company just that much. It’s as if by ignoring and shoving down his feelings for Bucky for so long, they’ve all come rushing out with all the intensity and strength of a geyser. _Slow your roll, Wilson_ , he tells himself.

Some day though, they’ll get there. Sam is looking forward to it.

* * *

Once Sam’s washed off the sweat and stink of a long day followed by an even longer night, it’s Bucky’s turn in the bathroom, which means Sam has the opportunity to engage in some benign snooping around Bucky’s place. He starts with the fridge, because he’s thirsty—actually thirsty, though also figuratively thirsty too, given the tantalizing proximity of a naked Bucky—where he finds many assorted fruit juices, along with admirably organized, if somewhat bare, shelves. Clearly, Bucky needs to go grocery shopping, though he’s probably been too busy the last week, thanks to the hunt for Jacobs.

He moves on to examining the books on the bookshelves as he sips on the last of Bucky’s orange-mango juice, and that’s where Bucky finds him when he comes out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel around his waist.

It’s not like Sam’s never seen Bucky shirtless before, during work outs and in the locker room. Now though, he gets to really look. It’s kind of a lot, what with all the muscles and the smooth, bare skin that’s still glistening from the shower, and the hair, all tousled from the way Bucky’s drying it with a towel. There are the scars around his left shoulder and collarbone too, but those are no surprise, and somehow, when set against the dark vibranium and shining gold of Bucky’s new prosthetic, the scars seem more triumphant than anything, proof of healing and strength. And god, the towel around Bucky’s waist is short, because his stupid legs are so long, so Sam gets a flash of thigh as Bucky moves and—

Sam drains his glass of juice and sets it down.

Bucky, Sam realizes, has been talking, nervously wringing the towel he’d just used to dry his hair, and Sam’s been too busy ogling him to really follow what he’s saying.

“—if you’re too tired, we can just sleep, and actually, maybe you don’t want to share a bed? I can take the couch, it’s fine—“

Sam walks over to him, gently takes the towel from his nervous hands, and tosses it aside. Bucky stops mid-sentence, wide-eyed, lips still parted, and goddamn, no one should look this damn cute while mostly naked and fresh out of a shower. There’s only one possible response to it, obviously. He takes Bucky’s freshly shaved face in his hands, and kisses him. Bucky sighs and sinks into it immediately, which is too goddamn sweet to stand, so obviously Sam has to keep kissing him. Now that they’re no longer in public, Sam can take it as deep and dirty as he wants, and he’s delighted to find that despite his nerves, Bucky wants that too, meeting him with hunger and enthusiasm, and goddammit, a lot of skill. Bucky is a confident kisser, but he’s not sloppy with it, and he knows exactly how to use his lips and his tongue to tease. It’s all Sam can do to keep up, to take it further. Bucky’s hands are warm and careful where they’re resting on Sam’s hips, and the contrast between that light touch and their deep kisses is making Sam desperate for more.

When he needs to catch his breath, Sam pulls away with effort to say, “Oh goddammit, you’re ridiculously good at this too, aren’t you?”

Bucky is gratifyingly flushed and his attention is still clearly straying towards Sam’s lips. His thumbs are rubbing dreamy little circles on Sam’s hips. “Huh?”

“Good at _kissing_ ,” clarifies Sam, then kisses him again in demonstration, when Bucky immediately proves him right by doing this thing with his tongue that makes Sam moan.

“I haven’t had any complaints, I guess,” says Bucky breathily. “You wanna…?” he asks, and tips his head back towards the bedroom.

“Shit, yeah, of course—” Sam says, and they stumble their way to Bucky’s bedroom, kissing the whole way there, and discarding Bucky’s towel along the way, which means Sam has a hell of a nice view as he walks Bucky back to the bed. With effort, he keeps his eyes above Bucky’s waist, though it’s, heh, _hard_ not to just get right up close and personal with Bucky’s thick, already half-hard cock. Sam takes a moment to appreciate the bed too, because damn, it’s pretty enormous, and absolutely covered in blankets and pillows.

“Why am I the only one naked here?” asks Bucky, which is a good point, so Sam takes off the clothes he’d just borrowed from Bucky, and joins Bucky on the bed.

Where he immediately flounders among the many pillows and blankets. It’s not super sexy.

“Sorry, sorry,” says Bucky, laughing as he tosses aside some pillows, before he kisses Sam apologetically, forestalling Sam’s questions about the point of all these damn pillows.

They make out some more then, and it’s like kissing in a cartoon’s caricature of the clouds, all wrapped up and surrounded by soft pillows and crisp white and blue sheets, floating sky-high on the wealth of skin-on-skin contact. When Bucky settles on top of Sam, the heavy heat of him, of his smooth and warm skin still smelling fresh and sweet and clean from the shower, and of the shivery new sensation of his prosthetic arm still slightly slick from the shower, all make Sam groan with pleasure, Sam’s tension melting away even as his cock begins to fill. With a suddenness that nearly takes his breath away, he wants to be enveloped and covered and filled, wants to sink deep inside all the warmth Bucky’s offering right now with the press of his body and his lips.

It’s been so long, since Sam has had that. He’s had flings, of course, since becoming the Falcon, and before that, a string of casual relationships that all floundered once it became clear Sam was unable or unwilling to commit to anything more than casual. He’d always had an excuse: it was too soon after Riley, he needed to work on himself more, his job was taking up most of his emotional energy…he could come up with excuses even now.

But the truth is, he doesn’t want excuses anymore. He just _wants_.

Bucky keeps kissing him, as if he’d be wholly content to do it all day. Hell, Sam might let him. He’s damn near melting under all the attention, and he lets out a shaky sigh as Bucky nips gently at the hollow of his throat.

“Hmm, you’re tired,” observes Bucky between hot kisses to Sam’s jaw, his neck. “We don’t have to do anything more right now, you know.”

“No, I know, but I want to,” says Sam, and rolls his hips against Bucky’s, earning a sharp intake of breath. “In case you haven’t noticed. Just, uh, maybe don’t take it personally if I fall asleep.”

Bucky props himself up on his forearms to lean over Sam and grins. In the bright morning light, freshly shaved and happy, he looks young and carefree, only the faint purple shadows under his eyes and the lines etched at the corners of his mouth giving away that he’s probably tired too.

Still, he’s clearly got more energy than Sam does, because he says, “Aww, that’s alright. I can do all the hard parts, if you’ll let me.”

Then he waggles his eyebrows, his grin growing even broader, clearly pleased with his terrible joke. Sam just groans, though the idea is definitely appealing. To lie back, and let Bucky press him down into the just soft enough mattress, to wrap his legs around him and keep him there, close and hot and deep, or to feel him pressed up against his back like a warm and living shield.

God, Sam could get fucked today, slow and thorough the way he hasn’t been in so long. _Bucky_ could be the one to fuck him, and he’d probably put as much diligent skill into it as he does everything else.

Sam runs his hands over the broad expanse of Bucky’s back, pressing down a little to feel the strength in his muscles, and lets his touch travel further down until he reaches Bucky’s ass, firm and a perfect fit in Sam’s hands. He gives it a squeeze, and Bucky narrows his eyes as he grinds down against Sam until they’re both almost panting.

“Yeah, okay,” says Sam.

“How do you want it?” Bucky asks. “It’s, uh, been a while for me, so...”

“Been a while for me too,” admits Sam, and doesn’t know whether to be flattered or offended by Bucky’s obvious surprise.

“What, a catch like you? You’re kidding.”

“Turns out being an international fugitive is not that sexy.”

“Yeah, but you were a dashing, superheroic international fugitive,” murmurs Bucky, leaning down to dot feathery light kisses along Sam’s clavicle like punctuation, until Sam squirms from the almost ticklish sensation.

Sam takes a deep breath and takes the leap into honesty. “Sure, but I’ve also been kind of a mess. For a while.”

Bucky looks up, and his smile goes from flirty to wry, his eyes a solemn slate blue. “Yeah, me too.”

Which is a good reminder that Sam’s not the only one here who’s dealing with some shit. How long’s it been since Bucky had this kind of intimacy? Years? Decades? Hell, since before World War II? The thought makes Sam’s heart ache. He brings a hand up to Bucky’s face, brushing back some of his still shower-damp hair, and kisses him, long and tender. It’s not really an apology kind of kiss, but it is an acknowledgment—a little sad, a little soft: _I’ve been kind of lonely for a long time too_.

Admitting it, even silently, makes Sam’s eyes prickle with tears, until the sweetness of Bucky’s lips takes the sting away. Goddamn, it really has been too long. Not just too long since he’s had sex, but too long since he’s had this kind of closeness and care, and it’s a little terrifying how easily it’s undoing him.

Of course, he’s also just really horny. It really has been a long damn time since he’s had anything other than his own hand. Cuddling and making out and having a heart-to-heart are nice and all, but Sam could really use a good fuck. It’s not a thing he usually indulges in for flings and Grindr hookups, but if he’s got Bucky, this nice big bed, and all the time in the world…

So Sam tells Bucky, “I want you to fuck me. That is, if that’s a thing you’re into.”

Bucky’s eyes go dark, his focus on Sam going from soft to laser sharp, and the shift almost makes Sam shiver. “That’s definitely a thing I’m into, yeah. Hope it’s alright if we go slow? Since it’s been a while for both of us and all.”

“You do know what you’re doing though, right?” he asks, and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“This is one thing that hasn’t really changed all that much between centuries, Sam. Yeah, I know what I’m doing,” Bucky says, before rolling off Sam and leaning over to rummage around in the nightstand. Sam shivers in the sudden cold, already wanting Bucky draped over him again.

“Okay, sure, but lubrication options have in fact changed, for the better.”

“What, vaseline not sexy enough anymore?”

“Barnes, I swear—“

Bucky turns back to Sam with a grin and a bottle of totally normal lube and a condom. “I’m just fucking with you, this stuff is way better than vaseline.”

“Oh yeah?” asks Sam idly as they get themselves positioned.

The excessive number of pillows on the bed comes in handy now, and Sam arranges them for maximum support so he can lie on his stomach, which he only feels a little embarrassed about, because he’s not 20 anymore and also he’s a superhero who’s manfully sore after a whole night of flying and heroism.

“Uh huh, especially with my left hand,” says Bucky, totally casual, as if that mental image doesn’t have all of Sam’s blood rushing to his cock. “Scoot up a little more, please.”

Sam does, and the drag of friction on his cock has him swallowing back a groan. “And what were you doing with lube and your left hand? And can I watch next time?”

“Fingering myself,” Bucky answers cheerfully, and Sam groans into the pillow. “And sure. Felt pretty amazing. You want me to use my left hand on you?”

“Yes, oh my god, yes,” Sam says fervently, and Bucky laughs, clearly pleased.

He smooths his vibranium hand down Sam’s spine and over the swell of his ass, light and careful, and Sam spreads his legs with a sigh.

“Not too cold?” asks Bucky, which is sweet of him, but while the metal of his hand is no longer quite as warm as the rest of him, it’s still perfectly pleasant.

“Nah, you’re good, c’mon,” he says and wiggles his ass in invitation, which just makes Bucky snort.

“Alright, tell me if you want me to stop.”

“Yeah, yeah, get on with it,” says Sam, because he’s always low-key resented this whole part of the process. Sure, it’s necessary a lot of time, and it’s definitely necessary now—Sam prefers his ass intact, thank you very much—but he usually finds it the most awkward and boring part of the process by far.

Bucky, it turns out, does not share this opinion. He settles down on the bed, close enough to Sam that he can feel the heat of Bucky’s body, and after a few more pleasantly firm strokes of his hand up and down Sam’s back, he slides one lube-slick finger inside slowly. Sam takes a deep breath, shocked by the strangeness of it for a moment; part of him had still been expecting a normal human finger, but the vibranium is smooth and unyielding, like some kind of plug or dildo, while its motion is unmistakably human and clearly sensitive to Sam’s every movement. Sam relaxes into it, his cock already beginning to throb in anticipation.

“There you go,” Bucky says, low and pleased, as he begins to work Sam open with luxuriant slowness.

Sam glances back at Bucky, slightly peeved, though also charmed by the avid and attentive expression on Bucky’s face.

“Okay, I know we said we’d go slow, but like, not this slow.”

“It’s been like thirty seconds, Wilson, simmer down. Let me give your ass the appreciation it deserves. It’s pretty amazing, you know.”

“Leg day,” Sam tells him, settling back down, more than a little smug now.

“Oh I know. I’m surprised you never noticed me sneaking looks while you did squats and lunges in the gym. But I guess you’re always pretty focused when you’re working out.”

So alright, Bucky’s surprisingly chatty during sex. Sam’s not mad about it, he guesses, though he’d kind of assumed Bucky would be the quiet and intense type. Bucky has a nice voice though, just deep and low enough to be pleasant to listen to, and soft-spoken enough that it makes you want to lean in closer. With his eyes closed and Bucky so near, his voice takes on an almost palpable, touchable presence.

“I—yeah. I guess,” he says. He’s honestly kind of disappointed that he’d missed Bucky ogling his ass, though the feeling passes quickly, overtaken by the slow rhythm of Bucky’s finger inside of him. “It’s, uh, part of the job, you know?”

“Hmm. It’s a pretty big job, being an Avenger. Being Cap, especially,” says Bucky, and Sam squirms, wondering where this conversation is going. “But you know you’ve got it handled, right? You don’t need any kind of superpowers to measure up.”

Sam starts to flush hot, unsure of what to do with the direction Bucky’s praise is taking. “Sure,” he says. “How about another finger, seriously, I know it’s been awhile but I’m not that delicate.”

“Yeah okay,” says Bucky, and slides a second finger in. His vibranium fingers are a little thicker than his flesh and blood ones would be, so the stretch is bigger than Sam had expected, but in a good way. He works his fingers inside Sam with maddeningly gentle thrusts that make Sam’s breathing speed up. His cock is fully hard now, sensitive to every movement against the soft sheets, and Bucky’s still talking. “Just—I wanna make sure you know, how amazing you are. You’re stupidly, idiotically brave, obviously, and you’re a hell of a fighter—I can’t believe some of the stuff you can do with the shield in the air—“

“Bucky,” Sam warns, or maybe pleads, unsure if he wants him to stop talking or keep talking or fuck him faster.

“And I cannot fucking get enough of watching you fight in the air, you know that?” continues Bucky, his voice getting lower and rougher now, even as the motion of his fingers stays slow and steady. “It’s gorgeous, you’re gorgeous. You know there’s this specific smile you get on your face, after you pull off something especially crazy? First time I saw that, I wanted to kiss you so bad. Wanted to every time I saw it after that, too.”

“Fuck, how did I not notice,” gasps Sam. His hips move, seeking friction, wanting Bucky to go deeper, but Bucky sticks with his slow and steady pace, almost but not quite hitting Sam’s sweet spot.

“No idea, sweetheart,” he says, and Sam can damn near hear his voice curling around a smile. “I sure felt real obvious about it. Then and every time you tried to talk people down instead of throwing the shield first, and whenever you called the shots from the sky, telling the team exactly how to get out of a tough spot. You think _I’m_ good at everything? Fuck, Sam, I’m nothin’ compared to you.”

Sam sucks in a shuddering breath, overwhelmed by Bucky’s words and the building wave of pleasure, the way his whole world has narrowed to the warm dark behind his eyelids and what Bucky’s giving him. His entire body pulses with need, like his heart has expanded to beat against every inch of his skin. Can Bucky feel it? Surely he has to be able to feel it. Sam wants to look at Bucky and check, wants to see his face, but at the same time, he suspects that would prove too much for him.

“But—“ he starts.

“But nothing. You don’t need superpowers, okay? You’re enough without them.”

And god, Sam shouldn’t need the validation, he shouldn’t, he wants to squirm with embarrassment that he even wants it this much, but fuck, it feels good. It fills Sam up exactly the way he’s always imagined a thermal must lift up his hollow-boned bird namesakes, as easily as if they’re made of the very air that holds them. 

“Bucky—you don’t, you shouldn’t—“ Bucky adds another finger and Sam moans, shuts his eyes tight against the pillow. He feels so _full_ and it feels so good but it’s still not enough, he still wants more. “Fuck, come on, is this a pep talk or are we fucking,” he says, the effect probably diminished by how thick his voice is and the tears stinging behind his closed eyes, but Bucky maintains his inexorable pace.

“Figure I might as well go for it while I have a captive audience,” jokes Bucky in a voice that’s only shaking slightly. “I just—I want you to know,” he continues, and now his warm and rough voice is close, his lips right beside Sam’s ear, his fingers still moving inside Sam. “That I see you, I guess, and I want you, just like this.”

Sam knows Bucky’s eyes have been on him, of course he knows; Bucky’s a sniper, Bucky’s had Sam’s six as a partner and a teammate, and the weight of his focus on the field has been a comfort, has given Sam the certainty to dive into battle, secure in the knowledge that Bucky’s bullets would take out anyone who got too close, that Bucky would always catch the shield when Sam threw it. But there’s a difference between the safety of that sniper’s focus, and this: this careful, intimate attention that goes straight to the heart of him.

He opens his eyes, turns his head, and looks at Bucky. Sam sees him: the hectic and lovely flush on his face, the tender set of his mouth, his blue-gray eyes like the whole wide arc of the sky, a horizon just as thrilling and familiar and endless, still full of possibility.

“God, of course you’re ridiculously good at this too,” Sam says, and Bucky smiles brighter than the break of dawn. “C’mon, fuck me already.”

And after one searing, toe-curling kiss, Bucky finally does. There’s no more careful control, no more going slow. He gets Sam up on his knees and slides in, thick and hot and perfect. For the space of a few heartbeats, neither of them move, they just breathe together, one deep and shaky breath, simultaneous, like they’re parts of a whole. Then Bucky presses a lingering and reverent kiss against Sam’s shoulder, and starts moving.

Bucky’s clearly used up the last of his restraint, because he moves hard and fast now, every thrust of his hips driving his cock deep into Sam, slamming against Sam’s prostate, until Sam’s moaning and begging for more even though more is surely impossible right now with how deep and fast Bucky’s fucking him. Still, Bucky finds a way, all _sshh, I’ve got you,_ his slick and smooth left hand reaching in front of Sam to take hold of his leaking cock, stroking it in the same frenzied rhythm he’s fucking into Sam with, and that’s it, Sam’s gone. He’s one raw and shivering nerve, being worked to agonizing ecstasy until he comes, shaking, flying so high on the propulsive blast of his orgasm that he’s scarcely aware that Bucky’s still fucking him.

Sam’s more than wrung out, but he’s still almost sorry when Bucky comes with a sweetly tortured moan, and he’s sorrier still when Bucky pulls out, slow and shaky.

“Alright?” asks Bucky breathlessly, easing Sam gently down onto the bed, and out of the wet spot, because he’s a goddamn gentleman, naturally.

Sam squints his eyes open and pats vaguely at whatever parts of Bucky he can reach, which at this point is Bucky’s back as he leans over towards the nightstand, presumably to dispose of the condom and fetch some napkins. Sam’s gonna be able to feel that fuck all the way into tomorrow, and that ache is gonna feel _good_.

“Oh yeah,” Sam mumbles.

“…you’re already half-asleep, aren’t you.”

Huh, his eyes are closed now, aren’t they. He reaches for Bucky again, and gets a pleasant armful of Bucky, all snug and smooth and very warm.

“Mmmhmm,” he says, and snuggles closer, as Bucky laughs softly.

The last thing Sam’s aware of before slipping into a very satisfied sleep is the sweet press of Bucky’s lips against his, and his last coherent thought as he drops off is that maybe the birds are onto something, when it comes to mating for life.

* * *

“This picnic is not for you!” Sam warns the geese.

It’s a perfect and beautiful clear summer afternoon in New York, and Sam is not going to let horrible geese ruin it. He’s found the perfect picnic spot: right by a big tree for shade, within sight of one of the park’s bathrooms, and with a lovely view of the lake sparkling in the distance. He’s set out an impressive array of delicious, classy picnic food—expensive cheeses, fresh fruit, an assortment of fancy and homemade sandwiches, a rich chocolate tort—and Sam will be damned if he’ll let any of the half-dozen geese stalking menacingly nearby have any of it.

“Oh yeah?” retorts a particularly belligerent goose. “Then why’s it on our territory?”

“We’re nowhere near the lake! Not everything in your territory is yours, you know.”

“Sounds fake, but okay,” says one of the other geese.

Okay, so appealing to geese’s sense of decency is clearly not going to work. Maybe they’ve got a soft spot for romance.

“Listen, I am here for courtship purposes, okay? I’ve gotta seal the deal with my mate. I’ve learned a lot of things from birds like you guys, and I’m putting it all on the field now, you know?” He gestures at himself and his carefully chosen outfit, which is nice but not too nice for an afternoon picnic date, and tight enough to show off his best assets, namely his fine-ass superhero physique. “I’ve got good plumage, by human standards. And I’m feeding him with this picnic I put together myself.”

One of the geese honks derisively. “Oh yeah? You hunt that food yourself too?”

“Not much opportunity for that in New York. Anyway, I’ve got the perfect playlist of music on my phone—“

“But you’re not singing one of your own songs, yourself,” says another goose, with a frankly insulting level of judginess. “Weak!”

Sam grits his teeth. “Not sure Bucky would be into that. I’ve also got a gift for him—nothing fancy, but still nice, and definitely shiny—“ he says, and pulls out the wrapped box that holds a reasonably priced watch that will complement Bucky’s prosthetic, because Sam has noticed that Bucky doesn’t have one despite the fact that he’s not yet used to using his phone as a watch.

“Sounds like you’re pulling out all the courtship stops,” says a warm and low voice, startling Sam to his feet and making the geese scatter.

Stupid Bucky and his stupid stealthiness, thinks Sam, thrown off-balance by both Bucky’s quiet approach and his beaming smile, which is downright dazzling even as it’s becoming a more and morefrequent expression on his face. Hell, that smile seems to warm Sam more every time he sees it, and it’s better still when he feels the shape of it against his lips as they kiss, like they do now, their arms around each other.

“Well, I’ve got this ridiculously competent, handsome, amazing partner and all, I’ve gotta make my intentions clear,” Sam tells Bucky between sweet and soft kisses, reveling in the way Bucky’s still smiling, his eyes sparkling.

“Seems like I’ve got a lot to thank the birds for, I guess,” murmurs Bucky.

“Hell yeah you do!” shouts a goose. “You better invite us to the wedding!”

And you know what, thinks Sam as he sits on the picnic blanket with Bucky, maybe he will.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] I'll explain everything to the geese](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27291337) by [quietnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietnight/pseuds/quietnight)




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